Ukrainian Media Landscape - 2017

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UKRAINIAN MEDIA LANDSCAPE - 2017

Oleksii Matsuka Serhii Tomilenko Oleksii Pohorelov Oles Hoian Andrii Yurychko Tetiana Lebedieva Vitalii Moroz Ukrainian media landscape -2017 Konrad Adenauer Foundation, The Academy of Ukrainian Press. (2017). Ukrainian media landscape -2017. Analytical report. Ivanov V.F. (Ed.). Kyiv.

Ukrainian media landscape -2017 is analytical report dwelling on the development dynamics of Ukrainian media outlets for the period of 2016-2017, a survey of Ukraine's media institutions and market. Prominent experts in the field became the authors of publication.

Published with the support of Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Responsibility for the information set out in this report lies entirely with the authors.

Cover Photo: GETTY

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2 CONTENTS

Foreword (Gabriele Baumann)...... 4

Editor’s note (Valeriy Ivanov) ...... 6

Section 1. Media coverage at the time of war in Ukraine ...... 8

Ukrainian journalism in the post-truth era (Oleksii Matsuka) ...... 8

«Hidden» impunity for crimes against journalists (Serhii Tomilenko) ...... 12

Section 2. Printed media ...... 14

Denationalization of press: a chance for development vs. force of inertia (Oleksii Pohorelov) ...... 14

Section 3. Radio broadcasting ...... 21

Ukrainian radio: new call signs (Oles Hoian) ...... 21

Section 4.Television ...... 27

News, original TV production, investigative programs and fun shows: the choice of TV viewers in 2016-2017 (Andrii Yurychko) ...... 27

Public broadcasting in Ukraine: hard way to important changes (Tetiana Lebedieva) ...... 32

Section 5. Online and social media ...... 36

Online and social media of Ukraine, 2016–2017 (Vitalii Moroz) ...... 36

About the authors ...... 44

3 Foreword

Konrad Adenauer Mission in Ukraine has been supporting the release of analytical report “Ukrainian Media Landscape” for 7 years long. The idea of this project appeared in Autumn, 2010 during the “Independent Media” working group meeting (Working group: democracy, human rights, good governance and stability) of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum in Brussels and Berlin. Media experts from six countries of the Eastern Partnership made a decision that the main priority is preparation of the media roadmap for the Eastern Partnership countries-participants. The first step to this became preparation of analytical media landscape reports for each country. Having analyzed the media situation in each country, common problematic areas were defined, and the activity on their solving is going on, joining efforts, knowledge and experience as well as the influence of international institutions for the lobbying particular decisions. Current tendencies of media environment development are articulated for Ukrainian experts, and general features of media situation in the country are provided for international readers by Media Landscape. All this time we have been successively realizing the project “Ukrainian Media Land- scape” in cooperation with our partner, the Academy of Ukrainian Press. Such activity always causes a good public response, and the publication is in a great demand. It has been issued once in two years in Ukrainian and in English and consists of articles written by Ukrainian prominent media experts, university professors and journalists specializing in different areas of media activity. After 4 years after Euromaidan, Ukraine’s politics and social life have changed significantly. The task of media at this time was not only observing all the aspects of these changes but also broad and objective coverage. This is a hard task when the number of topics is increasing and people are expecting broader and better media coverage. It is worth mentioning that such important processes as European integration of the country, specific ecology and climate change topics, and, certainly, complex economy, financial and regional development reforms should be covered. Journalists should regularly increase their professional level in order competently to assess the events. Coverage of military actions is one more field of coverage that became relevant in terms of the conflict in the East.

4 Due to the increase of challenges, re-training journalists remains an exclusively important issue that is addressed by the Foundation and AUP making their small but regular con- tribution by conducting seminars within the project “School of Social Journalists”. However, we have to understand that journalists work in different media structures and the potential of reforming there is still different. There have been numerous discussions on the reform of public broadcasting for the recent years, and now we can see the results. This problem is also mentioned in the publication. Having been residing, working and observing the events in Ukraine since 2012, I feel myself well informed due to printed media and Internet that provide a pluralistic coverage all this time. However, the same still does not concern television where high-quality documentary and objective news issues are rather rare. “Ukrainian Media Landscape - 2017” gives an answer to the reasons for misbalance in objective coverage of events by particular media outlets and provides the ways of approaching to the world journalistic standards. Mass media as “the forth estate” play truly a great role in life of each environment performing the functions of informing, making opinions and realization of control. The key to this can be independence of media that can be achieved due to the increase of political culture among citizens, reforming media environment under the pressure of civil society and implementing the rational financial models of media functioning. I wish all Ukrainian and English speaking readers fascinating time while learning our publication!

Gabriele Baumann Director of Konrad Adenauer Mission to Ukraine

Kyiv, December 2017

5 Editor’s Note

Valeriy Ivanov, President of the Academy of Ukrainian Press, Doctor of Philology, Professor

Ukraine is experiencing the difficult times of its turning to a democratic state. The choice of the Ukrainian people in favor of the western civilization model caused a strong resistance of Russia and those Ukrainian citizens who support the eastern vector of development. This resulted in an open conflict. Moreover, the annexation of Crimea, the war in the East led not only to significant human and territorial losses, but, alas, tolerating the violations of fundamental freedoms and human rights, in particular freedom of expression. The main points regarding the freedom of expression decrease in Ukraine include: the restriction of access to information channels (Russian books, TV channels, films, social networks, mail servers, etc.); persecution, in particular the detention and imprisonment of citizens ex- pressing separatist views in social networks; a mass prohibition on Russian journalists entering Ukraine, and those who were on temporarily uncontrolled territory (Crimea and Donbas). This is especially true for those who arrived in the area from the Russian Federation. In addition to this, so-called “patriotic” or loyalty-journalism became active as some journalists believe that in terms of war it is more important to participate in the information war against the enemy than just to be non-biased. Here also belong the calls not to criticize the authorities during war period, and the prolonged understatement of crimes committed by individual fighters of volunteer battalions. This led to a rapid fall of trust to Ukrainian media. Accord- ing to the Institute of Sociology, the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, in 2016, only 21% of Ukrainian citizens trusted domestic media, while 51% did not. However, Ukrainian journalists should clearly understand their social role. In general, Niclas Louman is right, saying that we know about the world is taken from media. But if the media give a biased image, the audience will stop trusting. This is so, if a person is looking behind the window, and observes a different situation from that one previously watched or read. The audience is not helpless. It is possible to cheat on people once or twice but after all they will not believe this source of information anymore. This is a real tragedy for media as they lose the sense of existing. Thus, the goal of media as the information source is not just to report all recent news to the target audience, but also to ensure that the virtual picture of the world corresponds to the real one.

6 The main function of media is informing. If journalists fail to provide information or information is unreliable, they are no longer trusted. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens now in the East of Ukraine. There are people who “look behind the window”, that is, they can individually, from relatives and other contacts find out what is really happening. And when this actual reality is different from the virtual one, which they learn from the media, then, naturally, they are disappointed with the last one. The widespread lie of media is not the only problem here (e.g. As it was previously informed by Ukrainian government and later by media, governmental troops are not shelling the places of local residents’ living). Small lie is sometimes more influential (e.g. It was reported of a big explosion in the center of Mariupol; Local police falsified this fact in the afternoon; Despite of this, state channels continued covering this fake explosion in news). Usual incompetence and laziness, and often not even the loyalty journalism, is the main reason for this. When information is not verified, it has no right to appear in media. Of course, for someone it is much easier to duplicate posts in social networks always full of exaggerated sensations. Is it possible to return trust? Yes. To do this, all journalists should work honestly and pro- fessionally. There are examples of such work. It is difficult, but important. Otherwise, who needs a journalism that nobody can trust? Ukrainian people clearly defined a western model of civilization as the main vector of their movement. Consequently, Ukrainian journalists should choose that type of reaction to news coverage by western colleagues. For all the challenges, the European media do usual, high-quality journalistic work: compliance with standards, first of all verification of facts, and providing full information on the positions of the main forces of conflicts, etc. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Ukrainian media. Military conflict that began in Ukraine has caused such challenges on which Ukrainian mass media did not respond adequately. Many journalists start working as some kind of weapon, and this would be absolutely acceptable from the Soviet point of view. However, it is abnormal in a democratic society when journalists declare the war. If one would like to become a soldier, it is better to leave profession, join the military, take a weapon and go to the frontline. But being a journalist requires adherence to standards, avoiding hate speech, verification of sources and not publishing information from social media when it is not checked that is happening in Ukraine quite often. When the war is going on and the Russian authorities openly support unadmitted repub- lics of the “DPR” and “LPR”, that is also clear from media information. In a confrontation of the Ukrainian and Russian mass media, Ukrainian journalists often take a wrong position: they mir- ror the Russian way. They deal with mudslinging and providing not approved information – and we also cover the events about Russia and the situation in conflict zones without data verification. Responding to propaganda with propaganda is a path of authoritarian journalism. Only honest, proven information must be given in response to propaganda. Regarding the achievements of Ukraine’s media development, founding of a public service broadcaster - the National Public Television and Radio Company of Ukraine and the denationalization of press is a progress that is successfully going on in recent years. In general, Ukraine has to go through a significant part of the way towards approximating to the Western standards of freedom of expression.

7 Section 1. Media coverage at the time of war in Ukraine

Ukrainian journalism in the post-truth era

Oleksiy Matsuka, head of the “Public Television of Donbas”, laureate of the International Press Freedom Award who was included in the list of “100 Heroes of Information”, published by the organization “Reporters without borders”

The Oxford Dictionary defines the “post-truth” as the “word of 2016”. It is a noun that describes the circumstances in which objective facts are less important for the formation of public opinion than the appeal to emotions or personal beliefs. According to the dictionary term “post- truth” in this sense existed already around a decade, but the frequency of its use has sharply increased in 2016, against the backdrop of a referendum on Britain’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) and the presidential election in the US. For the most part, the word is about politics.The author of the book “Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back” Matthew d’Ancona points out that “post-truth” in no way denotes lies. Regarding “post-truth” key is not a lie, but the public’s response to it, when “emotional resonance prevails over facts and evidence, replaces the verification of information from social networks that tells us what we want to hear”. “Truth loses its value as a reserve currency of society, and legitimate skepticism gives way to disastrous relativism” - concludes Matthew d’Ancona(source: Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back Paperback. Ebury Press, 2017).Ukrainian journalist Andriy Kulikov gives the following definition of “post-truth”: “It can be understood as an emotional narrative appealing to the basic identities of people” (source: http://medialab.online/news/chy-isnuye-postpravda-dy-skusiya- pro-real-ni-i-nadumani-zagrozy-dlya-media/). A proponent of “post-truth” is a “factoid”. For the first time, this term was used in 1973 by writer Norman Mayler in the biography of Marilyn Monroe. Factoids are “facts that did not exist before they appeared in a magazine or newspaper”. Media analyst Andrij Miroshnichenko in his article on the “Republic” website says that “the significance of the event always depended on the perception of the public: the event is not only what happened, but also what people will re- act to...Everything changed when “unauthorized” sources intervened in the circulation of public information, the number of which quickly reached three and a half billion. This is all of us who got on the Internet. The ability of the factoid to pretend to be a fact escaped from the editors to the spatial spontaneous, unauthorized authorship” (source: https://republic.ru/posts/76454). Journalist Susan Schole described the problem that originated with the distribution of social networks: “Facebook and other social networks are perceived as authoritative sources of information. This is not journalism. Everyone was delighted with the fact that now the information will be without any control. From this a little has happened. When you provide information without explaining what is happening in general, fake messages often come out. Journalism is a bit different. This is a system with its established laws, where reporting is a reportage, and a column is a column” (source:http://medialab.online/news/chy-isnuye-postpravda-dy-skusiya- pro-real-ni-i-nadumani-zagrozy-dlya-media/). The head of the Public Broadcasting Supervisory Board, Tatiana Lebedeva, confirms the findings of Schole: “The irresponsibility of bloggers is sometimes very impressive. That is why it is necessary to differentiate their practices and real journalism”. The consequence or reason (in fact difficult to say) of “post-truth” in media is the so-called “bubbles”. The image of “bubble” as an information cocoon was developed by Eli Pariser in his 2011 book “The Filter Bubble”. To check

8 how the “bubbles” work in media one should get acquainted with a number of newspapers from Donetsk People’s Republic – the image of forming an ideal world, which is offered to readers in hope that nothing else will be read in addition to this. The media analyst Andriy Miroshnichenko said that the agenda of those or other mass media “creates a cocoon of the right ideas and news”, “they persuade, for the most part, each other”. English newspaper “The Guardian” in February 2017 introduced a new section called “Burst Your Bubble” (source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/09/news-bubble-conservative-articles-for-liberals). Here the newspaper gives an overview of five articles of the center-right and conservative direction for its mostly liberal audience. Guardian, “worrying about an ideological breakthrough,” wants to “lower the tensions of confrontation” and “show people that there are smart conservatives and even conservatives who criticize Trump”. The “information bubble” is often a consequence not only of the emotional choice of the consumer of content, but also of the product “filter bubble”. This term was also proposed by Eli Pariser. Its essence lies in the fact that a personal search has a negative side - when websites determine what information the user would like to see, based on information about his location, past clicks, preferences, and search history.As a result, websites display only information that is consistent with the past views of a particular user. All other information usually does not appear. Bright examples of this are Google and most other search engines with personalized search results, as well as Facebook with a personalized news feed, which with every action of the user is filled with more personalized results.So, if the user has two friends in the social network, one does posts with the support of the president, and the second - with his criticism, and the user shares the first, and the second ignores, then gradually in his news feed will appear posts with more high assessment of the president. Accordingly, he receives much less information and becomes intellectually isolated in his own information bubble. The effect of the “bubble” may have negative effects on public opinion (source: Zhang; Séaghdha, Quercia, and Jambor, 2012). Auralist: Introducing Serendipity into Music Recommen- dation. ACM WSDM). As a result, a person may lose contact with the objective reality and begins to consume only pleasant information. In the Ukrainian language, the word “post-truth” is rare, but all the signs of this phenomenon already exist in the Ukrainian media and politics. For example, the supporters and opponents of one or another political side in the country read only their own groups in social networks, only “pleasant” media to them, and “life on the other side” is interesting to them only to be sure of their own rightness. The reality of “post- truth” is always either white or black. Any gossip or fable that before social networks circulated only in narrow interest groups can now become “news number one”, because they will have millions of views and distributions. Doctor of philology Georgiy Pocheptsov, answering the question “What is the post-truth?” gave the following definition: “The post-truth does not appear in the empty place, it, as arumor, often confirms what we already thought of as possible. And now our fears get confirmation. Actually, the post-truth was the result of right to vote that thanks to the Internet got everyone right away. The volume of information, as a result, has become so great that nobody is able to check it for probability. The speed of change is so great that we all the time live like tomorrow, so checking yesterday is no longer meaningful” (source: https://dt.ua/SOCIUM/pravda-ochima- postpravdi-_.html). The Ukrainian mass media faced massive misinformation campaigns long before the “Russian spring” of 2014. Their initiators were the individual headquarters of candidates, PR agencies, but not the state bodies that set up disinformation campaigns in the rank of armed operations. Georgiy Pocheptsov describes the consequences of this: “All media forces are thrown at the fact that each post-truth should look better. As a result, the reader / viewer is tired of seeking the truth. This isn’t his role ... In reality, there may be a lot of post-truths, but there still remain only one truth. Only now you cannot find it without additional effort. In the present world everything can be similar to the truth”. This may have been one of the reasons for the appearance of an entire wave of experts on Ukrainian TV channels in 2016-2017 years, many of which before appearing on television had a citation of less than 100 pages on Google. One of the reactions to such a thing was the words of the Ernst Reichel the ambassador of Ger- many in Ukraine: “Be careful with so-called experts. This applies not only to Ukraine. It seems that you have only a few high-profile journalists, but there are hundreds of experts. These experts saying that they know something, and this often does not coincide with the real facts”

9 (source: https://day.kyiv.ua/uk/article/den-planety-litnya-shkola-zhurnalistyky/pro-istorych- nu-vidpovidalnist-i-pomylky). To the emergence of such a large number of experts contributes the so-called “electric man”. Canadian philosopher, philologist and literary critic Herbert Marshall McLuhan in his work “Understanding Media” (source: McLuhan M. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man / Translated from English by V. G. Nikolaev - Moscow: Hyperborea; Kuchkovo Field, 2007) concluded that electricity “expanded” the human nervous system to the size of the planet.”The electric man” got rid of the body and became present everywhere, therefore, everyone get a personal experience about everything. Andriy Miroshnichenko describes this experience as follows: “A resident of the network will not refuse from any judgment. His newly-established divinity is ... in the all-knowing.” In Plato’s cave, only philosophers were able to see the light that illuminated the essence of things. On the Internet, everyone is seeing this world. But actually because of such number and variety of filters, it is already unclear whether this light real is” (source: https://republic.ru/posts/76454).One of the notable features of an “electric man” or, in our case, an expert that is present in a television studio is that his opinion does not imply any personal responsibility. Miroshnichenko concludes that “unrealized punish- ments for false judgments accumulate and become collective irritation” and agrees with Po- cheptsov’s thesis that “the reader / viewer has already tired of seeking the truth”: “What is this - everyone tells lies and you cannot find truth anywhere. The only winner is who plays with this irritation (like Trump), but even their victory is also annoying” (source: https://republic.ru/ posts/76454). As an illustration of these conclusions and the assertions that everyone wants his “truth look better”, can be separate plots and direct speech leading top news releases on national Ukrainian TV channels. The death of one of the militant leaders of the “DPR”, commander of the “Somali” battalion, Mikhail Tolstykh (Givi) on February 8, 2017, was expected to resonate on TV channels. On “1+1” the news was filed as follows: “Givi and Motorola have started to comply with the Minsk agreements. They will no longer shoot”. Vitaliy Gaidukevich, the anchorman of Chan- nel 5, presented the following news: “An official meeting of the militant leaders Mikhail Tolstykh (Givi) and Arsen Pavlov (Motorola) was held. The beginning was quite explosive. At 06:12:00 am. The very meeting itself has passed in a rather warm atmosphere - the office burned up to the ground”. The authors of the monitoring of the public organization “Detector Media” note that “this is not the only problem encountered on Ukrainian TV channels in coverage of this topic. On February 9, in news of ICTV and “1 + 1” it was reported that Motorola was killed by members of his own battalion. Both TV channels refer to the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta”, in the “TSN”, in particular, they claim that “Igor Miltsev, a Russian who fought in the terrorist unit “Somali” of the so-called DPR“, came to their editorial office”. However, as the same day was stated in the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” they received information not personally, but through an account in social network, which later turned out to be stolen. In order to avoid such a situation, journalists would have to verify three sources of information, according to all professional standards. But even worth is the fact that in the publications of “TSN” and “Facts” on February 10, this information wasn’t refute, and they were even referring to it once again” (source: http://osvita.medi- asapiens.ua/monitoring/monitoring_overview/mertvi_teroristi_y_zhurnalistigumoristi/). In the Ukrainian media field in 2017, even the name “Mykola Veresen syndrome” appeared. In such a way journalist Alexander Michelson names journalists who can demonstrate their own bias on one or another issue, as it happened during the broadcast on the “NewsOne” TV channel, where Mykola Veresen was the anchorman. Michelson describes the event as follows: “The pro-Russian political scientist Alexander Semchenko and the opposite artist Sergey Poyarkov were arguing in the studio. Mykola Veresen, at the same time, was openly on the side of Poyarkov, or, more precisely, against Semchenko, who in turn simply “shouted” on both the anchorman and the opponent. All ended in getting personal insults, swear words and mutual dousing with water of Veresen and Semchenko, besides the anchorman started watering first” (source: http://detector.media/community/article/128698/2017-08-07-sindrom-mikoli-veresnya/). Conclusion to which Michelson comes: “With the onset of Russian aggression, the ideological position of the anchorman, so to speak, was far from always connected with the “order of power” or the interests of the owners of the channel, which, in turn, could have been one or the other reasons to provide “information services” to a particular politician or political party”. Michelson also identifies the journalist Ostap Drozdov, the anchorman on the ZIK channel, as one who has “Veresen syndrome”. He “in fact, expelled the political scientist Yuriy Romanenko from

10 the studio for refusing to speak Ukrainian”. “Mr. Drozdov not only believes he was right, but also made a political manifesto on the grounds of this event - and yet many citizens, including professional journalists, supported him,” says Mikhelson (source: http://detector.media/community/ article/128698/2017-08-07-sindrom-mikoli-veresnya/). Pocheptsov offers such an algorithm for journalists to avoid such a situation and verify information: “a) check the fact in other sources; b) summarize information from the supporters and opponents of this message; c) rely on sources and authors who have been truthful to you before; d) to remember that our conditional enemies can preserve the situation, but will interpret it in a fundamentally different way; e) evaluate who was the source, the channel, the newspaper, who their owner; e) find out from which expert this interpretation was heard , because expert can serve and promote one or another position” (source: http://detector.media/ withoutsection/article/124473/2017-03-25-pravda-ochima-postpravdi/). One of the protection elements of journalistic material from consequences of post-truth is a professional factchecking. This is especially true for information coming from social media, so- called “new media” or “bloggers”. Indeed, a popular Facebook blogger can provide an alternative channel for the audience. But at the same time, when journalism does not possess verified facts, objectivity and accuracy, such an environment is perfect for post-truth; rumors and emotions become invulnerable to factchecking. It is also necessary to distinguish the role of hate speech in the formation of Pariser bubbles as a way to strengthen the right of consumers of this information. For example, as a result of the nine-month monitoring of the Zaporizhian media on the subject of hate speech, it turned out that 45% of the cases detected hate speech related to the Ukrainian-Russian relations. “An unconditional plus is that the calls for violence, the identification of the entire Russian people with aggression against Ukraine, occurred only partially. However, the veiled, and sometimes frankly, negative attitude of the authors of publications to the ”other side “, whether Russia as a state or the people, or representatives of the so-called “DPR / LPR”, appeared in publications on this topic, regardless of genres,” - said in a study published on the website “Detector Media” in July 2017. (source: http://detector.media/infospace/article/128293/2017-07-24-81-vrazhdeb- naya-oshibka/). According to a study by the Donetsk Institute of Information “Hate speech in the printed media and on the TV of Donbas”, the authors concluded that “Ukrainian regional and DPR`s media environments are not just polar, they often provide views and assessments of only one of the sides - the one where they actually stay and work. The pressure, threats and direct force influence on the part of the representatives of the self-proclaimed government, supported by the Russian Federation, made it impossible for Ukrainian independent journalists to work in the territory of non-controlled areas.This greatly worsened the ability to receive true information from these areas. Under the pressure remain journalists who stayed in uncontrolled areas and continue to perform their professional duties. The introduction of censorship and the extortion of one hundred percent loyalty to the self-proclaimed government has transformed local journalism in Donetsk into propaganda, has changed the quality of journalistic materials that aim not to inform, but to influence public opinion. In a military conflict, this situation leads to the use of -me dia speech with signs of hostility (hate speech). Such a phenomenon is recorded in the Russian, DPR`s, and sometimes in the Ukrainian media. Obviously, speech with signs of hostility does not help to overcome the consequences of the conflict and seek ways of understanding between the sides” (source:http://dii.dn.ua/analytics/128-mova-z-oznakamy-vorozhnechi-v-drukovanykh- media-donbasu-ta-na-tb-monitoring). By producing a huge amount of truths, each of which corresponds to the political, ideological and other interests of the consumer, society becomes indifferent to the real truth. Andriy Miroshnychenko warns that a new mental hygiene will be formed with the “and / and” ambiguity instead of categorical “or / or”. A satisfactory state of truth will be judged “most likely”. Journalism loses its ethical principles and thus loses its fundamental values, the reader’s trust and its very meaning. “What to do?” - raises question a journalist, founder of the Ethical Journalism Network Aidan White in the September issue of the quarterly journal “Cou- rier UNESCO”, which publishes the United Nations. (source: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0025/002523/252318r.pdf). He proposes “voluntary mobilization in support of ethics that will be able to return to journalism its reputation and original sense” and makes the following recommendation: “Today, not only journalists are obliged to follow their statements and respect the facts: any- one who wants to express his opinion publicly in the expanse of the Internet, must retain

11 some ethical restraint ... Even if a journalist can sometimes be too rush to publish untested news, the rules of journalistic ethics will make him admit his mistake. Because journalism is based on the facts and observe of civic duty, it can provide an effective to political circles plan to build a safe and reliable public information space” (source:http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0025/002523/252318r.pdf). To return to ethical journalism and try to escape from their own “bubble”, the following recommendations can help journalists: to eliminate their own ignorance in the editorial staff; learn to adhere to professional standards; use correct terminology; refuse to broadcast their own biased opinions in news; not to mix the role of media and propaganda. The main conclusion to be made to Ukrainian journalism in the post-truth era is that we all need to work increasing our own responsibility for the content released, taking into account all the possible consequences that our news and reporting can bring.

“Hidden” impunity for crimes against journalists

Sergiy Tomilenko, the National Union of Journalists, Chairman

Physical security of journalists is one of the most urgent questions in current media environment. Unfortunately, numerous expressions of violence against journalists have no proper reaction from authorities. In particular, the International Federation of Journalists at the end of 2017 calls Ukraine among those countries where journalists are at risk and where the worst impunity for crimes against them can be observed (other countries in IFJ’s index - Somalia, Mexico, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen). In November 2017, the National Union of Journalists (further NUJ) initiated a public hear- ing on journalists’ safety in Ukraine. According to the Physical Security Index of the National Academy of Medical Sciences (monthly monitoring of physical aggression incidents against journalists conducted by the organization), for the first 10 months of this year, there were 80 incidents of physical violence against our colleagues. In 13 cases, the attackers were officials or Members of Parliament; in 7 cases journalists were attacked by police or State Protection Office. But no one from the mentioned structures was punished for these crimes. Cases of beatings and assassinations of journalists during “Eu- romaidan” remain undiscovered, the killers of Viacheslav Veremiia, Pavel Sheremet, and those who ordered the murder of Georgiy Gongadze have not been punished yet. If some cases reach to the court, the perpetrators receive a minimum penalty. Thereby, society gets a signal that, in fact, violence against journalists is allowed. Security of journalistic activity includes the freedom to collect and disseminate information by a journalist, free expression of his judgments, guaranteed by art. 19 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (ratified by Ukraine and has the force of an international treaty): “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. Instead, the doubtful practice of persecution of journalists for the free expression of their views, even with the qualification of such actions under Art. 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (state betrayal), is going on.

12 Ukrainian law provides not enough protection for media from attempts to counteract their activities. There are frequent cases of unlawful seizure of collected, processed, prepared materials by a journalist and technical means used for professional activity; illegal denial of access to a journalist’s information, the prohibition on coverage of certain topics and figures or criticism of authorities. We come across the threats of murder, violence, destruction or damage to journalist’s property, danger to close relatives or family members, cases of deliberate physical harm to mass media employees, etc. Despite the fact that during the days of Euromaidan and after the Revolution of Dignity, leading political forces and leaders declared the support to the ideas of freedom of expression, these changes didn’t come true. Journalists who have experienced violence say there is no support from the authorities or law enforcement agencies. Representatives of law enforcement agencies often delay, ignore, or even directly participate in encroachments on the right of journalists to perform their professional duties. The incident near the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv on October 24, 2017 is worth mentioning, when three journalists were injured and groundlessly detained. According to the victims, the journalist’s status, to which the victims of arbitrariness appealed, was publicly dis- dained. In a number of such incidents, the conflict between the “Skhemy” television program director (group leader - Mikhail Tkach) and State Security Management staff members is especially worth mentioning, as one of the media workers suffered bodily injuries there directly while carrying out professional duties. Unfortunately, it is clear that double standards in observing the situation with following journalists’ rights exist. High-ranking government officials declare their adherence to the principles of freedom of expression and democracy but not much has been changed in the conditions of work in press. This situation is even more worrisome because impunity is being hidden, in particular, from the international community. The National Union of Journalists also draws attention to the fact that foreign partners of Ukraine often do not get true information about the state of freedom of expression and observance of the rights of journalists in Ukraine. International effort aimed at supporting various types of events needs to be reformed into diplomatic pressure making authorities and security forces to guarantee journalists’ safety on the basis of already existing legal norms. Precisely following the current law, the prompt response to violation of journalists’ rights, effective protection and fair judicial decisions are those components that serve as indicators of a high level of freedom of speech and safety for journalists. Taking these facts into account, the NUJ emphasizes on the need to draw attention of President of Ukraine, the highest officials of law enforcement agencies, to the fact that journalists’ physical security observance is unsatisfactory in Ukraine. The National Union of Journalists requires the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Supreme Court of Ukraine to take urgent measures and ensure an effective investigation of crimes committed against journalists from the time of Euromaidan, to transfer relevant cases to the court and to adopt convictions in all cases where the investigation will prove the attackers are guilty. Since the issues of journalists’ physical security and inefficient activity on behalf of Ukraine’s authorities and law enforcement agencies appear to be highly relevant, we consider it expedient for the media community to appeal to recognized international institutions with a call to make diplomatic pressure on the high-ranking officials and structures in order to guarantee the rights of journalists. Moreover, personal sanctions are essential against those who are recognized as “enemies of press”, consciously neglect or violate the rights of journalists.

13 Section 2. Printed media

Denationalization of press: a chance for development vs. force of inertia

Oleksiy Pogorelov, President of the Ukrainian Media Business Association (UMBA)

What will happen to the local press after denationalization? Will the newspapers become more interesting and useful? Will journalists and editors be able to earn? Will local authorities be interested in collaborating with independent editions? Will newspapers, after denationalization, making “jeans`a” during the election? All this is between the chances for development and the power of inertia that exists in any business, and local newspapers are no exception. So, let’s take a closer look. The local press is the main channel for receiving news and information at the local level. 70% of the regional audience indicates that their news source is the local press. Such data was recently unveiled by “U-Media”. But let’s dig deeper. Almost half of all local publications distributed in Ukraine by subscription are state and municipal. Thus, 692 editions from 1470 distributed in the regions and at the local level, are communal (613) and state (79). As far from big cities, so more influence on the audience have the local newspapers, the so-called “district”. That is, newspapers geography of distribution of which is either limited to the boundaries of the district or covers 1-2 neighboring regions. In average 25 district and inter-district newspapers are published in one region. The typical edition of this edition is 2000-2500 copies. The average number of inhabitants on the territory of “district” distribution is 35 thousand people. This is what determines the “map” coverage of the territory of Ukraine by the local press. The picture is supplemented by the total number and edition of publications distributed by subscription. We can see that, in aggregate circulation, and in the number of various publications, the local press, which is produced and subscribed in villages, small towns and districts, is 40-45% of the total subscription press. And publications with a nationwide distribution have 55-60% of the market.

However, this is not the whole market. After all, our analysis did not include editions that are only distributed in retail. Statistics on this indicator are extremely inaccessible and unreli-

14 able, since none of the retailers currently provides data either on the number of privately owned publications or on the number of copies sold per month. Therefore, these indicators can be evaluated only by expert way. Based on the data of the Book Chamber of Ukraine on the total number of publications currently issued, it can be estimated that not less than 30% of the total number of publications distributed by subscription is to be added - purely retail editions, which can be purchased only in kiosks of the press and other places of retail sale of press (on trays in underground passages, in supermarkets, etc.).

There are no communal publications among purely retail ones. No communal edition has exclusive retail distribution. Rather, on the contrary, there are many communal editions that do not have retail sales in general, but are distributed only by subscription. Therefore, we can safely restrict our subscription statistics when discussing changes that are taking place and will take place in the press market when denationalizing communal newspapers. Trust and outreach. Strategies of audience capture. As you already know, the local press is a leader in all types of media, in trust of audience to the quality of local news. This is evidenced by the results of a study that was announced by the “U-Media” project team in early September 2017.

15 The research “Attitude of population to media and use different types of media” was conducted by the sociological company “InMind” in 2017 on request of the International Civil Society Organiza- tion “Internews Network”. The analysis correlates well with the data on number of publications. Thus, despite of the increase in newspaper price due to more costs needed for publishing (growth of the minimum wages, the impact of inflation and tariff raising at Ukrainian Post (“Ukrposhta”) and other factors), on January 1, 2017 comparing to January 1, 2016, the reduction of the local press subscribed copies number amounted to only 3%, while subscription to national publications decreased by 5%. For more details see the picture below. And on January 1, 2018 comparing to January 1, 2017, the local press lost 5% of subscribed copies, when the national press failed to keep 12%.

Of course, the number of subscriptions to newspapers (the source of local news) is most strongly influenced by the difficult economic situation of subscribers to the local press. These are elderly people whose incomes are extremely limited. In addition, there is a physical decrease in this audience, because loyal subscribers just pass away. And the number of new ones is less than those who died. These are the issues of new (digital) platforms and content that would attract younger audiences. Both requirements are weakness of local editions. And they urgently need to make more effort here. Indeed, the high level of trust and monopoly situation in about half of the cases has an exhaustive potential, which is rapidly diminishing with the development of communities in social networks and under the influence of both technology development and the development of local communities. These issues will be analyzed below. The process of denationalization. Newspaper publishers do not strive to independence. The high trust of senior audience to local publications was possible, in particular, due to the historical circumstances. The most of local newspapers were founded 80-100 years ago, and all this time they were official sources of information. Although people understood that some content printed in newspapers was propaganda, they still trusted most of printed publications just considering them official news. This is currently happening too, and it is difficult to say what percentage of information people consider propaganda. Here we will emphasize only on the level of trust to local newspapers that is the highest comparing to all media. However, since January 1, 2016, the local press started its denationalization in Ukraine. According to the current law, by January 1, 2019, all communal newspapers have (1) either to become private, (2) or to transform into official newsletters (i.e., become publications without journalistic work and without advertising) (3) or to stop activity. More than half of the time devoted to this transformation has been taken, but the share of newspapers that have already been transformed into private ones is low. According to the analysis of Ukrainian Media Business Association (UMBA), the following results are available after the 2-year period: • 128 editions from the list of those to be reformed have completed this process, namely, changed a newspaper’s editorial office to a private legal entity and obtained the founder’s rights for printed mass media outlets; • 140 editorial boards have started but yet not finished the process of reforming. It means that certain legal actions have been taken (for example, the procedure for termination of cur-

16 rent editorial office has been initiated; a private company has been registered), however, the founder’s rights have not been passed. • 328 (or about 55%) of municipal printed media outlets have not yet taken any practical activity regarding their turning to the private ones. By the way, the lack of knowledge in becoming private instead of communal publishers is the most common reason for such a slow process. And since the process of change is rather time-taking and its completion depends to a great extend on the willingness and desire of both the editorial staff and the local authorities, as well as on the professionalism of registering clerks, those editors who do not begin the transformations by May 2018 probably will not have time to reform. Thus, since January 1, 2019, their registration certificates will be confirmed invalid -au tomatically in accordance with the requirements of the Law. The analysis is so detailed because denationalization of the communal press was declared to be one of the most important transformations in the local media market. However, it seems to be abandoned as the way of reforming due to the complete ignorance of the real state of affairs by the central government and the resistance on the local level. Thus, state authorities, especially legislators, currently do not have complete and true information about the state of implementation of the reform in the country and about the real obstacles to the process occurring on the ground. Therefore, it is not easy for officials to choose the most effective levers of influence on the situation and make certain changes. That is why UMBA is engaged in further study of the real state of denationalization of communal press. It is equally important to strengthen the work of the editorial staff and their founders on the reform process. According to the information collected by UMBA, 55% of editorial offices of municipal newspapers have immediately to start the process of changing their status into private entities otherwise their issue will be terminated less than in an annual period. State and communal media. Geography In the consolidated register of reform objects prepared by the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Committee, there are 692 newspaper publishers.

State media 79 Kyiv 3 Vinnytsia region 34 Volyn region 20 Dnipropetrovsk region 45 Donetsk region 19 Zhytomyr region 25 Transcarpathian region 14 Zaporizhzhia region 25 Ivano-Frankivsk region. 21 Kyiv region 36 Kirovograd region 28 Luhansk region 17 Lviv region 30 Mykolaiv region 26 Odesa region 30 Poltava region 30 Rivne region 20 Sumy region 22 Ternopil region 19 Kharkiv region 31 Kherson region 27 Khmelnytskyi region 26 Cherkasy region 27 Chernivtsi region 13 Chernihiv region 25

17 Income of local media The income of many local publishers contains the biggest part from subscription. The previous model of funding from local budget it is not important and sometimes even un- wanted to involve advertising. In category of accepted there were only congratulations-condolences, private ads (these are the so-called classified ads, which can be called ads type buy-sell) and, of course, official information. That is why it is difficult to build relations with local business today. After all, there are still no local advertising markets; advertisers also need to learn effective models for promotion of their products and services. It is important to help them master the tools for analyzing both promotional offers and basic media settings in order to choose the most effective solutions. The experience of UAMB shows that if newspaper publishers found the formats of cooperation with local entrepreneurs and introduced the information about products and services in an interesting way for their audience, new sources of income will come out and the interest of readers will grow. The annual analysis of the advertising market conducted by the UAMB Expert Council for the period of 10 years, indicates that the regional press received more than 16% of all advertising in press, and the projected revenue from advertising in the regional press in 2017 will increase by 15% compared to 2016 and will amount to a total of 219 million UAH. However, the revenue of local publishers from advertising and communication services sale might and should be higher than the moderate 16% of the market. And this is a great development field for the communal press mastering now the wisdom of independent life. More- over, only those local newspaper publishers receiving significant regular income from the sale of services, along with advertising and other types of communications with their audience, will be able to look ahead with confidence. And this challenge is probably the most important for media going through denationalization.

Itemized expert forecast from Ukrainian media business association for 2017 Results of Forecast for Dynamics 2017 Forecast for Dynamics 2017 2016 2017 to 2016,% 2017 to 2016,% (as of Decem- (as of Decem- (clarification in (clarification in ber 2016) ber 2016) August 2017) August 2017) Segments Million UAH Million UAH % Million UAH % National press 680 816 20 816 20 including sponsorship 180 200 11 200 11 Regional press 190 218,5 15 219 15 Specialized press 280 308 10 314 12 IN GENERAL 1 150 1342,5 17 1 349 17

Content. The tired audience of sketchy journalism. The positive news for local press is that audience is slightly disappointed by social networks and Internet as a reliable source of information. It is easy to explain because the number of bots that place false information in someone’s interests only grows. People are tired of fake information. They want editorial boards to be responsible for the facts and for the ethics of publishing. Journal- ism is a “watch dog of democracy” but qualitative only. The content generated by users may be radically misleading. In addition, it concerns not only news but also cognitive and entertainment materials. Tips, reviews, even recipes (in non-editorial sources) – all this can be false. The Internet is full of incorrect information and there is an increasing interest in proven sources. It should be noted that the new rise of traditional media, press in particular, is happening all over the world. This is due to the phenomenon of fake news flooded on Internet. In a recent WARC article “Fake News Returns faith to Traditional Media” the results of the Ogilvy Media Influ- ence study are listed. Half (52%) of journalists call traditional editorial media as the most trusted source of news. And the channel with the largest content of fake news, according to research findings, is social media. Returning to the Ukrainian assessment of the quality local journalism by the audience, it is worthy to look through the results of the research “Attitudes of the population towards the media and the consumption of different types of mass media”, performed in 2017 by the sociological company “InMind” on request of International Civil Society Organization “In- ternews Networks”. For example, the coverage of key reforms in the country by media with the exception of decentralization does not provide enough information for the readers.

18 However, it only seems that decentralization is easy for coverage and there are enough materials about the reform. In fact, it is more likely that the audience rather does not want to receive more information about uninteresting and complicated processes than media revealed the topic of decentralization so that a significant majority of readers figured out the issue. In other words, improving the quality of local media content is the shortest and most effective way to turn communal newspaper publishers into effective and economically independent media outlets. But again this can be realized only with the simultaneous work on sales development, new formats of cooperation with local authorities, community and business.

Editorial management. What should be urgently changed? What will bring the denationalization of press: a chance for development or no changes because the local newspapers will rather stay by inertia in the environment they previously used to? All that was discussed above are important components of the answer. This includes the question of reaching audience (that is currently subscribing to local newspapers but not for long); the current economy state of local newspapers and their strategies for getting additional sources of income (except for subscriptions and contracts for the coverage of local government activities); content (that attracts both the audience and revenue). And how about the editorial management? Here belong the strategy, planning, control, capacity building and activity coordina- tion of employees. Only particular newspaper publishers have more or less regular management. Therefore, according to my observations, in a year or two no less than half of all local newspapers that must undergo denationalization until January 1, 2019 will leave the market. Most likely, two newspapers out of three will not survive because even leading local editors have actually not got well-established planning and control system, few have a vision for 1-2 years ahead, individuals have experts responsible for involvement of advertisers… Local newspapers work as small family companies where everyone is responsible for everything. This might be good for quick solutions in the beginning, however, it hardly allows to leave concurrents behind, gives less possibilities to create proposals for cooperation with business (limits capacity building), brings down the level of personal responsibility. Such outdated editorial management needs urgent modernization. There is nothing bad on the fact that all members of editorial team take care of the well-being for the editorial office! Local newspaper publishers in the United States work in a similar way see the article “America’s local newspapers might be broke – but they’re more vital than ever” (https://www. theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/11/inequality-local-news-outlets-journalism-media-reporting). However, journalists there also pay attention to both high-quality content and capacity to earn income. The difference lies in professionalism of editorial managers. And this is an urgent

19 task for both the editors of local communal or already denationalized newspapers, and for all those who support local newspapers, from local authorities and businesses to donors. A huge number of the “district” editors in recent years 10 ignored both learning and participation in conferences, experience exchange, partnerships, etc. And now they are not ready to act quickly in accordance with the circumstances and challenges. Therefore, local newspapers are at risk.

CONCLUSIONS. Advice to communal and newly denationalized newspaper publishers For editors Urgently analyze the strengths and weaknesses, risks and opportunities for yourself and your edition. Prepare a plan of urgent action for the next six months and for a year. Find costs and hire a competent consultant to help you with this. Make your plan clear and comprehensible enough, maybe with the help of consultant. Contribute more into the increase of the newspaper’s audience and your weekly or monthly income. Always remember that your newspaper is poten- tially in danger and it is your duty to find out every day what works and what is not efficient. For journalists All the hope is upon you. It is your job that can make a newspaper be in demand, turn it from an old-fashioned edition to a new, modern, interesting and useful one for different audiences: both traditional older readers and new ones. This will bring more income without any doubt! Otherwise, you are going to lose your job because the newspaper will not survive. There are no other alternatives. For donors After many years of support trainings for journalists, it is time to support what will lead to a progress in management of local media. It is necessary to teach editors how to organize the activity of local newspapers, build effective communication campaigns, encourage more improvement and innovation on a daily basis, and study their audiences systematically. Profile associations are the right places for dissemination of best practices and resource pooling for joint research of audiences, and cooperation between editors of different levels. Cur- rently, when editors have no funding, associations are lack of resources to create a product or service that can be used by the whole market. For local authorities and united communities Particular communities and local authorities started establishing new local media: both print and digital. Do you really think that there are so many experienced journalists in your area to make the new media more qualitative than those working for more than a decade? And wouldn’t it be a waste of the community’s budget to create another media that would better provide the important information? Or maybe there are more effective ways to achieve the same or better goal? Hire a consultant and analyze few options with an independent person. This will definitely prove to be more effective. For local business There are many ways of cooperation with local newspaper publishers: not only advertising in a particular way. Do you know any effective ways to increase the sales of your colleagues in other cities? If you are looking for such information, you will definitely have advantage over your competitors. Innovation always works this way. And do not wait until the newspaper offers you something. You know, those who wait in business always lose. For partners from other media Everywhere in the world media companies have reduced their staff. And just like anywhere in the world, media companies are looking for the ways to provide high-quality content for less money. And why would Ukrainian media not seek cooperation with each other? Ukrainian editorial office based in Kyiv editorial will probably make better-quality analytics, for example, on the topic of education reform rather than the same will be done in a district. Instead, district newspaper publisher will make a good material about local farmers’ work, and this material could be used by Ukrainian editorial office by exchange. After all, the content and new forms of high- quality communication are what the audiences around the world are looking for. Everybody is tired of fake news in social networks and free media: internet and television. For readers Do not read the low-quality press: neither print nor electronic. It is just as harmful as using overdue products. Learn how to distinguish high-quality information from that of low-quality for yourself and teach your children to do the same. It is your responsibility. But also agree that the quality information is not free.

20 Section 3. Radio broadcasting

Ukrainian radio: new call signs

Oles Goian, Professor, Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Television and Radio Broadcasting of the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University

Since August 24, 2017, the Independence Day, Ukrainian radio has changed its call sign. “Old” melody in a new way – “Rove and moan ...” - got a modern arrange- ment, and the former site URL of the UR had been restored earlier with a new visual and programmatic concept and management. So, in Ukraine, at the level of vocal perception, there was a transition from state to public broadcasting – the traditional mi- nor long melody of the song in bandura performance has become a major dynamic, with modernized musical synthesis and new announcer performance. Much work also has been done in a new way on the Ukrainian broadcasting market, where, in the absence of state broadcasting, there is a gradual “creeping” of public and commercial. Public Broadcasting. “Public radio” is one of the broadcasting formats notably charac- terized by the non-profit polystylistics of the content; this means that the programs broadcast on air are not being prepared for sale. Avant-garde, alternative, electronic and ethnic music, children’s programs, student radio, etc. - all this is a theory taught at universities. In Ukraine, in practice, public radio which is mixed from social and public, aims to actively resist commercial radio stations, involving competitive musical and conversational formats that cover the mass audience and are well sold. And the first sign of such a confrontation is the termination from April 1, 2016 of the Ukrainian radio and commercial Radio “Era” joint production. So, “Era” has decided to abandon broadcasting at UT-1 frequencies after founding the public broadcasting, which is quite logical, taking into account the concepts of public radio. By the way, together with “Era” the cooperation of the UR with the Public Radio had been suspended, and then was renewed on September 4, 2017. The «Public Wave» program returned to the UR-1 as a joint production of the Public Radio and Ukrainian Radio. Andrii Kulykov, the chairman of the board of the Public radio, commented: “It is important for us, because this step symbolizes the mutual hope for the cooperation of the Public Radio and the Social Radio” [1]. So, in Ukraine, both in theory and in practice of radio broadcasting, the activities of public and public service broadcasting were finally coordinated and specified: both work for society as well as for individual communities, but have different management and funding. Thus, since January 19, 2017, the Public Joint Stock Company “National Public Television and Radio Company of Ukraine” (further “NPTU”) has been registered as a legal entity, so public television and broadcasting has been de jure established in Ukraine. The branch of National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine “The Central Directorate “Ukrainian Radio” received the broadcast title “Ukrainian Radio”, and having confirmed, as noted by the general producer of the UR Dmytro Khorkin, its main task is to offer the society different views and answer the society for the right to satisfy its basic request for truth [2]. 26 branches of NPTU (Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kirovograd, Krivyi Rih, Luhansk, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Novgorod-Siverskyi, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, and Chernihiv) will develop broadcasting in the regions. The Crimean branch broadcasting satellite as an all-Ukrainian channel “UA: Crimea” since January 1, 2017, joined them after the suspension of the Sevastopol branch. Since September 4 of this year, the public broadcasting of Ukraine has started a new media season, giving the regional branches the right to create joint projects and, at their own discretion, to fill their sections on the Ukrainian radio. In general, a system of cooperation between regional

21 branches was created, in which each of them had an equal period of time in national broadcasting and was involved in a nationwide talk show “From Kyiv”, which supplemented and enhanced it. The position of regional coordinator was introduced that provides communication with journalists from the regions, collection of materials and their introduction on the national level. So, branches were proposed to care about the quality of their own broadcast, which would be competitive and could be selected (or “cast” according to the name of the e-mail, to which regional materials should be sent: [email protected]) to the joint radio broadcasting. According to Dmitry Khorkin, three channels of the Ukrainian Radio have become of a “narrow- format” [3]: The first channel - only news, social and political; The second channel “Promin” - youth, music-speaking; The third channel “Culture” is artistic and educational. [Here it is better to say “narrowly themed”, in the end the clear formatting of speech in Ukraine was more likely to be characteristic of commercial radio stations; therefore, the use of term “format” to define public broadcasting adds optimism. - author]. Foreign broadcasting - The World Radio Broadcasting Service of Ukraine, with editors in English, German, Romanian and Russian, also balances on the verge of «All News» and «Talk Radio» conversational formats. Clear audience specification with the simultaneous reaching a big target audience is observed. Ukrainian radio is trying to conform many of the world’s public broadcasters, who, incidentally, interpret the use of the theory of commercial formats to practice public or public service broadcasting differently. Finally, within the international of public broadcasting, there are two different views on business. One of them is that public service broadcasting is incompatible with commercial purposes. The second is that public service broadcasting can and must compete with commercial broadcasters [4]. At the stage of public service broadcasting formation in Ukraine, the regional branches had difficulty abandoning the so-called “commercial approach” – “Jeans`a”, custom- materi als...Quite revealing in this regard were monitoring of the regional broadcast, in the result of which, for example, in February 2017, the director of the executive branch of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine “Zhytomyr Regional Directorate” Vasyl Golovetsky resigned with the consent of the sides, as the audit revealed a series of storylines with signs of an order. Member of the Board of NPTU Mykola Chernotitskyi, who was responsible for working with the branches, commented this as follows: “This is a message to all the directors of the branches. A public broadcaster is primarily a quality and absence “Jeans`a”. Vasyl Golovetsky is the first director who fell under the “train” of the Public radio, which is gaining momentum [5].And, indeed, public broadcasting in Ukraine is gaining momentum, including the priority directions of media development, in particular, broadcasting in Crimea and Donbass.

UR-1 steadily acquires frequencies in the “former” Ukrainian territories, competing with commercial radio stations, some of which were created specially for broadcasting to uncontrolled Ukrainian territories. Among them, for example, is the «Army FM» from the Central Radio Studio of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which won the frequencies claimed in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Or the «Trizub FM» radio station, a project of volunteers from Zaporizhzhia, which at one time had controversy with the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting, because it launched the broadcast in the ATO zone without a license and a temporary permit.

22 In addition, the Ukrainian Crimean Tatar Radio Hayat (in translation – “life”), whose license contains terms for at least 50% of the information for the Crimean community, started operating on the 103.5 MHz frequency in the Kakhovka district of the Kherson region. It should be noted that central Public radio helps to implement the plans of “Hayat” in life. This is one more evidence of partnership among private radio stations in the development of Ukrainian civil society. In this context, one should also mention the development of ethnic broadcasting, which will continue to be run in eight languages after the reorganization in the Transcarpathian branch of the Public Broadcasting. Commercial Broadcasting. Commercial radio station (commercial radio station) is a business company that sells live time advertising for profit. In 2017, it will be 25 years since the foundation of the very first commercial radio station in Ukraine – “Radio-Radius” in Mykolaiv. During this time, commercial broadcasting of Ukraine has made way from “musical hodgepodge” to an influential business, which holds strong holdings, research centers and regular advertisers. The four largest radio companies are “TAVR Media” (“Kiss FM”, “Hit FM”, “Radio Relax”, “Russkoe Radio-Ukraine”, “Melody FM” and “Radio ROKS”), “UMH” (Ukrainian Media Holding –“NRJ”, “Retro FM”, “Avtoradio”, “Nashe Radio”, “Radio Friday”, “Voice of the Capital”, “Lounge FM” and “Gem FM”), “Business Radio Group” (“Biznes Radio”, “Chanson Radio”, “DJ FM” and “POWERFM”), “Lux” (“Lux FM” and “Radio Maximum”)with the help of the interdisciplinary association “Radio committee” are exploring the radio audience of Ukraine, planning advertising and marketing campaigns together with international consulting and advertising agencies “Publicis Group” (Publicis Groupe), “ADV Ukraine” Group, “GroupM”, “UMG” and “Radio Expert” and, in general, determine trends in the development of Ukrainian commercial broadcasting.One of the trends, for example, is that “advertisers who were not previously there started to join the radio” said Igor Romanen- ko, head of the press and radio advertising and communications holding “GroupM” [6], - He means pharmaceutical companies and banks here. Also, the budgets of automobile category are increased. “Alcohol” traditionally loves radio. Consolidation has affected commercial policy. It is transparent, nobody is dumping, and agencies are given equal prices for tenders. In general, experts from the broadcasting market agree that radio is the “healthiest atmosphere” among all the media; the radio has clear, predictable conditions for advertising.Quite characteristic for commercial broadcasting is also the fact that the radio today attracts the attention of the wealthy audience. Lesia Kostromina, director of the press and radio group ADV Ukraine, is convinced that radio is a powerful media channel that continues to develop its functional capabilities. She believes that “the share of high-income audience listening to the radio continues to grow. Ac- cording to the latest data, it has reached one third of all radio listeners. This is a very good ar- gument in favor of this media. Now the radio has certain advantages. After all, when planning promotional products that are designed for an audience with a profit above average, it provides an effective coverage of advertising campaign” [7]. In general, the following tendencies or trends in the development of Ukrainian broadcasting during 2016-17 (based on the publications of the “Radio Committees”) can be considered: The amount of radio advertising budgets in the first half of 2017 increased approximately by 20-30% compared to last year. The largest radio advertisers in the year 2017 were: the “Orbi Group” (Orbi Group), the jewelry company “Zolotyi Vik” and the food producer “Victor & K”. The largest sponsors of the radio in 2017 were the alcohol companies LLC “Ukrainian Distribution Company” and the group of companies “Bayadera”, as well as the representative of the fuel and energy complex - concern “Galnaftogaz”. • The leader among the radio holding companies is the largest advertising revenue for the total number of radio stations - the radio group “TAVR Media”. In the first place –“Hit FM” (radio group “TAVR Media”) with a profit of 118.86 million UAH, “Lux FM” (“Lux group”) from the 63.29 million UAH is ranked second. • The third place has “Autoradio” (radio group “UMH”) from 59.70 million UAH. At the fourth stage is “Russian Radio-Ukraine” (“TAVR Media”) from 57.40 million UAH. Closes the first five “Kiss FM” (“TAVR Media”) with 46.69 million UAH. • The interest of the mass audience to the radio is reduced. However, the part of the most loyal listeners to the broadcaster is increasing. This is also due to the gradual growth of online radio listening in Ukraine. “Such dynamics can indicate an improvement in the quality of contact with this audience”, says Natalia Chernets, Director of the “Radio and Press Direc- tion”, “GroupM” [8]. • The target audience of radio is not only “rationally” listening to radio programs, but also emo- tionally. In the broadcast, listeners are looking not only for information, but also for the mood.

23 An example of this is the success of Radio “Relax” (“TAVR Media”), which in 2017 became a nationwide network, gaining 22 regional frequencies for 55 cities, including for broadcasting in the Donbas and Crimea. “Light and quiet Radio “Relax” - the first precedent on the Ukrainian radio market, when the main vector of positioning, in fact, is not the content, but the mood that creates the product. In Ukraine, we first used such a marketing strategy and, as our ratings show, clearly won!” - said the general producer of “TAVR Media” Vitaly Drozdov [9]. • If the competition of commercial radio stations of music formats in the FM band is intensified, then the “New & Talk” radio stations - namely Ukrainian Radio (UR-1), Public Radio, Radio “Aristocrats”, Radio “Era”, Radio “Vesti” - are significantly strengthening the role of public and public service broadcasting. This became especially clear after the termination of the cooperation between the Ukrainian Radio with the Radio “ERA” and the loss of FM frequencies of Radio “Vesti” (only in Dnipro). Both commercial radio broadcasting companies are launching their activities on the Internet, but the program content of their broadcast will not have the same online rating in the near future. Instead, the Public Radio, which used to work online only, gained a number of FM frequencies, mostly in the Eastern Ukraine.

And, of course, some words will be said regarding thequotas for Ukrainian songs and language on radio. On November 8, 2016, the Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine” On Television and Radio Broadcasting” came into force, which referred to the shares of songs in the state language in music radio programs and radio broadcasts. Quotas are introduced gradually over three years. During the first year, radio stations will be required to broadcast at least 25% of songs in Ukrainian and conduct at least 50% of programs in Ukrainian in the course of the day. During the second and third years - gradually raise the percentage, respectively, for songs from 30% to 35%, for broadcasting in the air in Ukrainian - from 55% to 60%. On October 18, representatives of the largest Ukrainian radio groups signed a memorandum on the application of the legislation on the volume of songs in the state language and the volume of conducting programs in the state language at the premises of the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting. In general, the broadcasting market perceived the situation with the quotation of songs in Ukrainian rather restrained and cold. Director of “TAVR Media” Igor Chernyshova called this memorandum and the new law on quotas “a compromise between the wishes of society and the radio industry”. These words can be considered as typical to the reaction of media. During the first half of 2017, the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council fined radio stations that did not comply with quotas for Ukrainian and Ukrainian music on air for nearly 600 thousand hryvnias –“Vesti Radio” from Kharkiv, “Glas Radio” from Odessa, “Kiss FM” and “Radio Shanson” from Kyiv, Radio 104.4 FM and “Best FM” from Mariupol, Radio “Irt” from Severodonetsk, “Radio Europe Plus”Dnipro, Radio “Mayak” from Alexandria, Radio “Bukovinsky Khvylia” from Chernivtsi and others. By the way, at the Chernivtsi radio station during an unscheduled inspection, the National Council found the part of songs in Ukrainian language 24.7% instead of 25%! There is quite interesting fact that at one time even the Public Radio fell into this list of offenders. “The chairman

24 of the National Council, Yuriy Artemenko reminded that the National Council closely monitors the implementation of the law on radio quotas and punishes all offenders without exception, even if it is a deviation of less than 1%. Members of the National Council unanimously supported the decision on a fine for the Public Radio in the amount of 1751 UAH” [10].

Thus, Ukrainians heard much more songs in Ukrainian on radio during 2017, while performers and bands singing in Ukrainian can much easier to get on air, according to Radio “Svoboda” [11]. And, finally, a number of radio stations emerged broadcasting only in Ukrainian. And it was necessary to radio stations, as the music critic Yurko Zelenyi explained, firstly, only to reconsider the suitability of music editors who “never lived in the Ukrainian-speaking music environment, never took care of them, and were not interested in what was happening there. And in general, modern scene was treated by them at best, as something to such a provincial one, and at worst, that such does not exist at all. Secondly, radio station managers should stop sabotaging this decision by “pulling out” the Ukrainian-language pop music with the taste of the Soviet “naphthalene” and launching two or three well-known Ukrainian-speaking performers who are circling with the same performances that is a frank sabotage and subversive activity in general!” [12].Experts warned that “there are two dominant positions. Some say that nothing after the adoption of the law will change, another opinion is that the radio will be closed” [13], as noted, for example, on June 18, 2016, the executive director of the Independent Association of Broadcasters Katerina Miasnikova. However, in a year, a lot has changed in the “Ukrainian-speaking” Ukrainian radio broadcast. Even all radio stations belonging to the inter-branch association “Radio committee”, were broadcasting exactly the Ukrainian Anthem at 24:00 and at 06:00. And no station was closed because of “non-compliance quotas”. Moreover, the share of the Ukrainian language in the broadcasting market has increased and even exceeds the norm that operates from the autumn of 2016. Any market always offers an alternative option, which is indicated on the website of the Ukrainian Radio: “Public radio is an alternative option to state and commercial broadcasting”. But is it worth looking for an alternative option where it cannot be in principle? Moreover, it is spoken about the dual system of broadcasting in Ukraine typical to the most media-developed countries – public and commercial radio. In practice and theory such a system works optimally in the broadcasting market, because it is regulated by social orders and market laws.

25 [1] Public radio on the waves of the Ukrainian// https: радіо //hromadskeradio.org/ news/2017/08/16/gromadske-radio-na-hvylyah-ukrayinskogo-radio. [2] “Ukrainian Radio”unveiled a new broadcast network// http://stv.detector.media/reformuvan- nya/radio/ukrainske_radio_oprilyudnilo_novu_sitku_movlennya/. [3] Same. [4] A Model Public Service Broadcasting Law// https://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/standards/modelpsblaw.pdf. [5]The temporary director of the Zhytomyr Directorate of the National Television and Radio Company will be a woman// https://zhitomir-online.com/2017/08/23/tymchasovo-vykonuvaty- obovyazky-dyrektora-zhytomyrskoyi-dyrekciyi-nacteleradiokompaniyi-bude-zhinka.html. [6] On its wave: How does the radio manage to be the only media showing revenue growth// https://delo.ua/business/na-svoej-volne-314353/ © delo.ua. [7]High-income people are listening to the radio more // http://reklamaster.com/marketing- and-advertising/ljudi-z-visokim-dohodom-dedali-aktivnishe-sluhajut-radio. [8] “Hit FM”, “Friday”and“Chanson” took the first places in the rating index in the study of “Ra- dio Committee” // http://detector.media/rinok/article/128659/2017-08-04-khit-fm-pyatnitsa-i- shanson-posili-pershist-za-pokaznikom-reitingu-v-doslidzhenni-radiokomitetu/. [9] The light and quiet radio “RELAX” has become a network//http://www.tavrmedia.ua/radio- relax/ua/event/224. [10] The National Council fined “Public Radio” and “Bukovinsky Wave” for non –compliance with the quota of Ukrainian songs // https://antikor.com.ua/articles/180698natsrada_oshtrafuvala_ gromadsjke_radio_ta_bukovinsjku_hvilju_ za_nedotrimannja_kvoti_ukrajinsjkih_pis. [11] Six months of language quotas on radio: Ukrainian song raises its head? // https://www. radiosvoboda.org/a/28469868.html. [12] Same. [13] How Ukrainian-language quotas will affect the radio market// http://www.nam.org.ua/me- dia_news/yak-ukrayinomovni-kvoti-vplinut-na-radiorinok25/?set_lang=ua.

26 Section 4.Television News, original TV production, investigative programs and fun shows: the choice of TV viewers in 2016-2017

Andrii Yurychko, PhD, lecturer, the Institute of Journalism, Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University.

In 2016, advertising business returned to the spots which were occupied before crisis with the growing index comparing to 2014 when television industry experienced some decrease. As a result, TV channels reorganized their activity, and in their struggle for attention from audience as well as for income from ads, tried to change images and to produce original content for the programs. In the second half of 2016 and the first half of 2017, the rates of TV channels were not stable. Some of them left concurrent behind, and some tried to occupy another field, a more prestigious one. Continue reading below about events in Ukrainian TV media landscape.

The rates of main TV channels Currently, “1+1” is the most preferred channel. First after 10 years, it introduced the highest results on viewing by the audience aged 18-54 that made 9,98 % of all views, a little more than TV channels STB that reached 9,94% and “Ukraiina” channel having 9,75% respectively. This data was provided by the Industrial Television Committee (further “ICT”) after the analysis of outcomes 2016 in their monitoring. It was found out that TV channels TET and ZIK managed to receive more popularity than previously. Simultaneously with this, the positions of TV channel “Inter” is tremendously falling and moved to the 6th place in index. The situation can be explained by the coverage of Russian serials and concerts at “Inter” where Russian pop-stars performed, especially during the important dates in Ukraine, e.g. the New Year’s Eve, the Victory Day, and the Independence Day, and also by the information war between owners of Inter on the one side, and the owner of “1+1” supported by the pro-governmental structures on the other. Success of “1+1” was realised due to the popularity of original TV production, for example, the programs “Holos Kraiiny” (“The Country’s Voice”) and “Holos. Dity” (“The Voice. Chil- dren”). The segment of serials brings much attention to the Channel. However, the top of rating in 2016, despite of a minor advantage, went to 1+1 after the New Year’s programs. The rates of “95th Quartal Studio”, one of the top fun shows at “1+1” Channel fell slightly down, perhaps, because the audience is already tired of jokes. However, this program suffered more in September, 2016, when its actors performing in Latvia showed the image of Ukraine standing in front of Europe like a prostitute, and trading for a better price. Despite of always disputable jokes produced by the “95th Quartal Studio”, this time the topic of relations with the European countries became insulting for Ukrainians, and the show was accused of being not patriotic. The actors apologized and promised to cancel their applications to tender on Ukrainian film production supported with the government’s funding. “1+1” held its audience due to the news formats: daily and summing up news that are the channel’s strong sides. Besides this, the channel takes up new fields of coverage like inves-

27 tigative formats. In particular, “Skhemy” program, showing the activity of high-ranking officials investigated by journalists, is rather interesting. By the way, since January 17, 2017, TV channels “1+1” and “PlusPlus” have changed the format of TV broadcasting picture from the ordinary (4:3) to the broadscreen (16:9) of standard definition (SD). According to the alternative rate of TV channels published at the end of 2016 by Gfk Company, “STB” channel is on the top, and “1+1” took the third place. This achievement of STB channel can be explained by its devotion to adapted production, popular live air programs and interaction with the audience. Online streaming of a high quality and live air accessibility at the website are worth mentioning. Successful programs include “Weighed and happy”, “Everybody’s dancing”, “Master Chief”, “Dad’s Housekeeping”, etc. The news segment of “STB” is not in con- currence with 1+1 that is why these two channels are on the top of rate and stand not far from each other. According to the statistics by gender, the audience of “STB” is traditionally female (71,9% of viewers are women) comparing to “1+1” where the male audience is prevailing. The third place in ITC index was achieved by “Ukraiina” channel due to the audience of elderly previously watching “Inter”. “Ukraiina” left the ambition of becoming the primary information channel in 2014, but the search for its place and audience is going on. The most guessed programs of the channel were football matches “Euro-2016”. Yevhen Liashko, director of “Ukraii- na Media Group” announced that TV channel suffered financial difficulties because of featuring the programs only for Ukrainian market. Consequently, this approach does not allow to receive the income TV channel previously got used to. He also complained that for the last two years “Ukraiina” has lost the content giving 50% increase in rating. This means reloading for every channel according to the top-manager’s opinion. Now, “Ukraiina” is looking for new strategies mainly for the off-prime air that is filled with Ukrainian and Russian melodramas, and decided to deal with the key projects: documentaries, TV shows and serials. The next place, according to the ITC index, went to “ICTV” that gained popularity due to the humorous content. Since 2015, the concerts of “Dizel Studio” within the “Dizel Show” project have been released and started competing with the “95th Quartal”. The third season of fun show «NaTroikh» (“For Three”) in January, 2017grew up in rating up to 4,1% that is more than in all previous times. The program «Civic Protection» has gained some popularity as well as the coverage of new travel shows «Peculiarities of national job» and «Vacation on exchange». In the first half of 2017, the channel ICTV leaped forward with the best ever results, 10% of broadcast share and two audience categories aged 18-50+ and 14-49. One more achievement of this channel is the weekly broadcast share of views by male audience of the age categories: 25-45, 50+ that made for the whole period of broadcasting– 14,8% of all views. Of course, it is early to sum up the year but the struggle for leadership is becoming more exciting. According to ICTV, the growing in index became real due to the information programs «Facts», «Extraordinary news», and a number of publicist projects in night prime-time. The rates of update “Weekly Facts: 100 minutes with Sokolova” are steadily high. Regarding the weekly peak rating, the «New Channel» being on the 5th place in 2016 according to ICT index, is worth mentioning. In 2017, the channel set its review time record for the period of recent 5 years that made 10,87% of all views from the audience 14-49, 50+. According to expert opinion, it was possible because of the focus on youth and popular shows «Ladettes», «Supermodel», «Variaty», and «Network Spoilers». The channel «Inter» is completing the list of main channels. Its rate is falling down this year and even studio production does not improve the situation. Three scandal music concerts (on the New Year, the Victory day and the Independence Day), a number of prohibited in Ukraine serials produced in Russia, accusations of hidden advertising in favor of the politicians from «Op- position Block» in news (explained by the channel as the importance to follow the balanced coverage and giving the alternative views), leaving the channel by top management and journalists are the problems of “Inter” that are considered by advertisers and the audience. On March 16, 2017, the National TV and Radio Broadcasting Council prepared infograph- ics on Ukrainian language share in the live air of Ukrainian TV channels. As provided in the table 1, the highest percentage of Ukrainian language use has the channel “Espresso TV” that is broadcasting only in the state language. More than 90%of Ukrainian language is on air of the “5th Channel”, “UA: the First”, “Culture”, “24” and “Era”. Less than provided by the law 75% of Ukrainian language use is broadcasted by “112”, the “New Channel”, “STB”, “NLO”, “NewsOne”. 50% of broadcasting in Ukrainian have “NTN”, “K2”, “Ukraiina”. TV channel “Inter” is covering 26% of content in Ukrainian.

28 Niche TV channel index Ukraine’s TV channels can be subdivided into the entertaining, informating, regional, and, since 2017, public. Public service broadcasting A wonder did not happen. Annual budget increase from 600 to 950 million hardly influenced the rates and quality of Ukrainian Public Service TV Broadcasting (further UPSB) programs. Changing the ownership structure, founding the Supervisory Board, and the increase of annual funding were not helpful. However, this period was decisive for “UA: The First” as the legal stage of turning all state regional TV and radio companies to UPSB branches was over. The election of UPSB Steering Committee Chairman by the Supervisory Board was intrigu- ing for some time. Eight managers applied to this position with their own development projects. In April, 2017, Zurab Alasania, who had been headed from March 25, 2014 to November 1, 2016, was chosen again. Previously he asked for dismissal because of «being unable to carry out the duties” but in a year changed his mind and decided to return. In UPSB future development project, Zurab Alasania provided that teenagers and youth will not be involved in any TV or radio channel’s activity because of their consuming different content at the online platforms. In general ITC index, UPSB channel takes currently the 25th place. This result was achieved thanks

29 to broadcasting of biathlon, boxing, Eurovision and Paralympics Olympics. The rest of the NSTU programs show consistently low rating. Entertaining It is obvious that the channels remained at their previous positions. “NTN” is actively covering the old Russian detectives (irrespective of prohibition on movies and serials where Russian Security Service or Army is represented), and American franchise “Crime Scene Investigation”. The program “Witness” remains popular, and Soviet classics is prevailing among films. The channel “TET” is going on to exploit the serial of its original production “Panianka- Selianka” (“The Lady and the Peasant”). The sketch program “Once in Poltava” and Russian serial “Kitchen” are among leaders. The channel “K1” featured the travel show “Orel i Reshka” (“Heads and Tails”) once again, and the channel “2+2” did the same with the football matches. However, both channels some- what lost their positions in rating. The last of five niche TV channels is “NLO TV”. In 2016, it won the audience due to the coverage of western movies previously shown by TV channel “Ukraiina”, and is trying to avoid Russian serials. No changes in rating of musical TV channels are observed. They still remain at the same positions that in 2016. News In case with TV news channels, the situation is different. At the end of 2016, the ranked list of channels was so: “Espresso”, “NewsOne”, “The 5th Channel”, and “112 Ukraiina”. However, the first month of 2017 showed another tendency. First, “112 Ukraine” TV channel expected significantly to increase its rates. The decision was made actively to intercept the audience of “Inter” and “The 5th Channel” in the news and information domain. In November 2016, the TV channel was headed by Yegor Benkendorf, a former chairman of the Supervisory Board at “Inter” TV channel. In the beginning of the year, “112 Ukraiina” showed good weekly rates, the press office of the channel even spoke about the first place in rating of the news niche. But in February the TV channel could not withstand the load. First, there was a scandal with experts who accused the “112 Ukraiina” of bias and using experts as a background just for informational noise. Then several journalists and anchors of main programs transferred to the TV channel “ZIK”. TV channel “Tonis” also tried to occupy a niche of information and analytical channels in 2017. Let’s remind this channel has long been accused of having been created and funded by the son of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Alexander. In order to put an end to the accusations, the TV channel changed its name to “Priamyi” and unveiled a new ownership structure, where the main interest belongs to General Director Alexander Butko. Recall that and changed the name to “Direct”. The TV channel began broadcasting in August 2017, which goes beyond the time limits of the study, and the first rate should be monitored closer to the end of the year. “Priamyi” like TV channel “ZIK” paid attention to startling anchors from the other channels. General producer of “NewsOne” Alexei Semenov, as well as TV anchors Eugene Kyseliov and Matvei Ganopolskyi, changed “NewsOne” for “Priamyi”. The regional TV channel ZIK is once again trying to get into the nationwide niche. It has not enough resources to compete on equal terms with the giants of the television industry or to produce original programs, but the channel does not mind to compete for the audience of information programs, considering the redistribution of the audience of “Inter”. ZIK’s press service focuses on the weekly ratings of new programs with new faces (the old figures of “112 Ukraii- na”), that helped the channel to be shortlisted in the first five, but it is too early to talk about stable results. Of course, the rates of the channel increased due to new programs and formats, as well as for the change of management and journalists’ staff. A dismissed guest editor from ZIK complained that the new management required imitating and competing with “112 Ukraine”. The channel is not afraid of experimenting with the viewers.

Loosers of the year Mikheil Saakashvilli spoke on air at TV channel “ZIK” in talk show “Insha Ukraina” (“An- other Ukraine”). However, it showed not a politician with a sharp criticism of the government but a second-rate spokesman who made statements of corruption. On the other hand, this program received more rates than other at “ZIK”. The show did not go on. Being a true politician, Saakashvilli accused the Presidential Administration of pressure on TV channel that resulted in closing the program. It is hard to believe in this version. If the program were so trending and

30 dangerous for Ukrainian authorities, they would continue recording and distributing it using the well-known ways of content share: social media and Youtube. In an interview with “Detector Media”, Gaygisis Geldiev, ex- general producer of “ZIK” said that thanks to the Saakashvili talk show, they increased the audience and received free PR and attention. In addition, he said, the channel had nothing to do with the content of talk show and did not suffer reputational risks. Indeed, at the beginning the show participants announced that “ZIK” and the production “Ukrmediaproship” are different structures with different sources of funding and different responsibilities. In addition, the channel was funded for the show, as confirmed by Nadia Tysiachna, PR-director of the TV channel “ZIK”. This is slightly different from the statements of Saakashvili who stated that he had received a salary of 50 thousand UAH for the program recording, though,TV channel denied it. In addition, the founder and the head of production LLC “Ukrmediaprostir”, producing talk shows, is Daryna Chizh, Saakashvilli’s press secretary. The question is whether a TV channel could be paid for showing production and if this can be considered as hidden advertising or “jeansa”. Attempts to attract famous people to speak on air are not bad in theory. As such a figure, Dmytro Firtash first appeared on “Inter” and TV screens, though he did not perform as an anchor of his own talk show. Another public figure who tried to conduct a TV show was Maryna Poroshenko, President’s wife. She was shown at the TV channel “Ukraiina” as an anchor of sport category “In the rhythm of sport” in the morning show “Morning with Ukraine”. Appearance of the first lady at the television channel that belongs to one of the main opponents to the President - businessman Rinat Akhmetov - caused a fair discussion. First of all, it was about the choice of the channel and format. According to Petro Poroshenko, he was not consulted. But someone definitely watched. On the occasion of President’s birthday, Maryna Poro- sheno starred in a video-clip as a news anchor where she told about his husband’s achievements on a position of the State’s head. The clip was recorded in a State’s company studio “Ukrainian Multimedia Platform” that is used by TV channel “UA\TV2” of the Ministry of Information Policy. Its price makes 4,5 thousand UAH. The clip was placed on Facebook page of a charitable community lead by Maryna Poroshenko. The jokes about the only program where Ukraine’s President is praised and not criticized are popular now in social media after the release of this clip. Speaking about serious claims and accusations, the main event on the top of anti-rating in 2016-2017 years can be closing the “Savik Shuster’s Studio” and announcement by Mr. Shus- ter of activity at the analytical and information “S3.tv” Channel. Having gone through the main Ukrainian TV channels and having created a new entertaining talk show that was not previously viewed in Ukraine, the program was miserably over. Savik Shuster explained the reason for closing the channel that had to start covering since January, 2017 by absurd situation in Ukrainian media market where all the channels are unprofitable and exist only for oligarchs’ funding.

Summing up The flywheel of television, despite the existing financial problems, is gradually gaining momentum. The political and economic crisis in the country has not yet been over, but demonstrated, first of all, the weaknesses of media management: a bet on the content of Russian production and little attention paid to the development of original production quality. At the same time, the TV channels who invested in adapting or producing original projects covered much more audience and left a concurrent behind. Other TV channels begin to follow this model. The advertising incomes being the balance indicators between the interests of business and audience returned to the level before crisis. It is significant that news projects provide a stable audience, and this applies to TV channels of the main group (“1 + 1, ICTV, Inter”) and niche TV channels (“NewsOne”, “112”, “24”, “Channel 5”). Moreover, actual news production provides some stability even when the rates are falling due to the other miscalculations (for example, “Inter” and “Ukraine”). The popularity of investigating programs and comedy shows also contributes to the increase of the audience, demonstrating that the attention of viewers is switched between serious and entertaining segments. But the focus on politicians, which at one time pushed the development of the TV channels “Inter”, “Ukraine” and “1+1”, turned out to be unsuccessful in the long term perspective and only emphasized the importance of educating the audience through a number of informative as well as entertaining projects. Being in a constant search for the formats and topics, as it is consistently done by the TV channel STB, is also essential.

31 Note. Data on rating research are based on investigation of television audience conducted by Industrial Television Committee. Panel operator – Neilsen. Monitoring – Communication alliance. Data include the audience 14–49, 18–54, 18+ (5 thousand + “the whole Ukraine”). Data for 2016 are based on research from January 1 to January 31, 2016. The rest of data are retrieved from the weekly investigations of TV audience from January 1 to June 1, 2017.

Public broadcasting in Ukraine: hard way to important changes

Tetyana Lebedeva, Honorary Chairman of the Independent Association of Broadcasters, Chair- man of the Supervisory Board, National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine

The importance of Public Broadcasting (PB in text) in Ukraine has been discussed in professional expert circles for more than 20 years. The existence of a dual system consisting of state and commercial broadcasting could not satisfy the needs of society and realize the right of citizens to receive objective and complete information. Certain media experts and associations of public organizations have steadily tried to persuade the public and politicians that state control over the media is a characteristic of post-Soviet and not very civilized countries. Moreover, freedom of expression and the right to seek and receive information is an important condition for the functioning of true democracy.Any country that wants to be credited to the club of Eu- ropean states should abandon control of media. Public broadcasting must become an obligatory while providing informational pluralism and unity in society as well as offering a wide range of programs for all segments of the population. The main problem in implementation of this reform, for many years, was a lack of political will. No less serious reason for stagnation was the resistance of bureaucracy that got used to manual control of the state broadcasting system, and the vast majority of employees who (reasonably) perceived the process of reform as a challenge to the familiar state of things and their own comfort. Creation of the PB for many years was a commitment by Ukraine to the Council of Europe. But even this did not encourage the move to practical steps in this direction. The Revolution of Dignity and all the radical changes in Ukrainian society have prepared the conditions for real reforms in all spheres of life. And founding the PB became one of the most important reforms in the media. Launching transformations As early as April 17, 2014, the Law of Ukraine “On Public Television and Radio Broadcast- ing”, which was approved by the Verkhovna Rada, laid the legal framework for the creation and operation of the PB. The National Public Television and Radio Company of Ukraine (further NPTU) is a legal entity of public law, the formation of which is provided by law. NPTU is responsible for the functioning of Public Television and Radio Broadcasting in Ukraine. A long-awaited law on public service broadcasting, as well as any other, has both advantages and disadvantages. But it was impossible to wait for the perfect law. It was already introduced and there will be made changes in it, it can be improved. But today it is absolutely sufficient to start such an important reform. The process of transforming state broadcasting into public has proved to be complicated and lengthy. According to the law, Ukraine creates its public broadcasting not from a scratch, but on the basis of dozens of state TV and radio companies, and this is, first, a large number of work-

32 ers, and secondly, a huge property complex, so there is a lot of work. Several figures to illustrate the scale of transformations: NPTU - 7124 employees; 274 real estate objects (administrative buildings, garages, hostels, cinema, warehouses, production facilities, bomb shelter) with a total area of more than 193 thousand square meters; 39 plots of land with a total area of more than 34 hectares; 162 licenses, of which TV - 73, R - 89. Such a transformation is complicated in addition to organizational and administrative problems with the need for a significant increase in the quality standards and level of professional ambitions among creative workers, changes in the paradigm of editorial policy formation and communication with the audience. According to the law, the Cabinet of Ministers is responsible for establishing the Public Company “NPTU”, so, precisely the Government had to take measures in this activity. The key requirement for the establishment of any PB is independence. If there is no complete independence, the PB will not be able to maintain a level of trust and will lose (or will never get) public support. Therefore, the issue of independence and unacceptability of interference in activity and editorial policy has been given much attention in the law. At the same time transpar- ency, accountability and public control should be ensured. For the implementation of these functions the law provides a supervisory board that includes one representative from the parliamentary factions and groups of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the current convocation and nine members from public associations. The Supervisory Board has a right: to run the elections of Head and Board members, define the main fields of activity for NPTU, provide the requirements for salary payment, appoint 1/3 of editorial board members, approve the editorial statute, choose the company for the annual external audit, and publish the report on NPTU’s activity. On December 17, 2015, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting approved the staff of the Supervisory Board. The list included Taras Avrahov, Volodymyr Brynzak, Yevhen Hlibovitsky, Daria Kariakina, Vyacheslav Kozak, Tetiana Lebedeva, Lawrence Malazoniya, Vadym Myskyi, Svitlana Ostap, Oleksiy Panich, Vitaliy Portnikov, Natalia Skrypka, Viktor Taran, Serhii Taran, Taras Shevchenko, Ihor Hohich, Volodymyr Yavoryvskyi. The four-year term of Supervisory Board members’ power began on January 19, 2017, since the state registration of Public Company “NPTU”. The Supervisory Board as a body could not make a decision until the registration of a public broadcaster as the legal entity. But by the end of the state registration process, it had worked on drafting legal acts necessary for the full-fledged work of Public Company “NPTU” and prepared a number of important documents, in particular: - Defined the mission of a public broadcaster: “Protection of freedom in Ukraine. Providing reliable and balanced information about Ukraine and the world to society, building a public dialogue in order to strengthen public trust, civil responsibility development, Support to Ukrainian language and culture, Ukrai- nian folk and each individual”; - Took active part in drafting the Statute of Public Company “NPTU”; - Developed and approved the Regulations on the Board, the Audit Commission, The main activities of Public Company “NPTU” in 2017, requirements for competition on the va- cant position of the Head of the PJSC “NPTRCU“, prepared the text of contract with the Head of Public Company “NPTU”, etc. The Supervisory Board steadily appealed to the responsible persons regarding the need to accelerate and not to stop the process of transforming the state broadcaster into a public one. The current statute of Public Company “NPTU” was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on December 28, 2016. The legal entity was registered on January 19, 2017. Many experts believe this date is “point of no return” in this reform. On February 3, 2017, the Supervisory Board announced a competition for the vacancy of the Head of the Board of Public Company “NPTU”. For the first time in history of independent Ukraine, no state body appointed a Head of the state-owned television and radio company. On April 10, 2017, the Supervisory Board during the open competition where six candidates participated elected Zurab Alasania as the Head of the NPTU Board. The contract with him was signed on May 4, 2017. According to his submission, the Supervisory Board elected six members. The Supervisory Board signed the contracts with the Head and board members. It is precisely this team that will be responsible for the course and results of this overriding reform over the next four years. The first steps and decisions of the Board indicate the desire to achieve real transformation and construction of the PB.

33 It is worthy of note that at all stages of establishing the public broadcasting system in Ukraine we received attention, necessary assistance and support of international institutions and the donor community. Risks and Dangers That Threatens Public Broadcasting in Ukraine The first and main challenge for the newly formed public broadcaster may bethe loss of independence through the pressure of individual political forces or officials. The first attempt to intervene was felt by the Supervisory Board when, in the eve of the election of Head for Public Company “NPTU”, there was an attempt to remove one of its members by leaders of political faction that delegated him. The leader of this faction wasn’t satisfied by the result of voting during the meeting of the supervisory board. Dissatisfaction (legal) with the new approach to the coverage of the Government’s activity was regularly expressed by some Members of Parliament. Such actions clearly illustrate how individual politicians do not understand the main principles of public broadcasting, and looking for the ways to influence creative team and editorial policy. This directly contradicts with the principle of Supervisory Board independence, the public broadcaster, and the norms of current law. Such precedents are unacceptable and must be reso- lutely rebuffed. Independence of all PB structures should be ensured. The second lever of influence on the PB may become the financing. The Law on Public Broadcasting stipulates that a public broadcaster must receive 0.2% of the general fund of the state budget for the previous year. This means that Public Company “NPTU” in 2017 should have received UAH 1.28 billion. However, despite the legislative guarantee, the State Budget of Ukraine for 2017 provided only UAH 970 million. This makes a deficit of UAH 300 million at the very beginning of the company’s reform, and illustrates the non-binding nature of following the direct legal rules, even in the context of increased attention to the important reforms. If the Verkhovna Rada does not make changes to the budget, Public Company “NPTU” will not receive full funding. Then there will not be enough funds to optimize the structure, update the outdated material and technical base, and the most important – to produce new quality programs in accordance with the standards of public broadcasting. The financial problems are followed by the decision of the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine, which according to the National TV and Radio Company Ukraine recognized the debt of National Television Company of Ukraine in 10 million 591 thousand EUR before the company “Eu- ronews SA”. This decision can put Public Company “NPTU” on its knees and prevent the planned changes. For society, this will mean a lack of significant change and discrediting the idea of public service broadcasting. Is it worth saying that there will be no other chance in Ukraine? It should be added that there are problems with public broadcasters in some European countries. And in almost every case funding is the instrument of pressure. It would be very un- pleasant for the image of Ukraine if the financial problems of Public Company “NPTU” would be perceived by the international community as attempts to control and pressure the independent broadcaster. The third challenge for the team of reformers is the fierce resistance of the numerous teams that must be reformed and reduced. Especially strong it is felt in regional branches that have long been used to working “by own rules”. In most regions, the number of employees exceeds the budget and production needs, the part of the administrative apparatus and services far exceeds the number of creative staff, and the level of professionalism and compliance does not meet the requirements of the PB. Is it possible to reform, leaving the number and quality of staff unchanged? Of course not! Is it necessary to optimize it? Yes, it is. But every abbreviated “unit” is a human. And this is skillfully used by those who oppose reform. Only a transparent, detailed methodology, clear criteria for the employee’s dismissal / leaving, the use of all possible ways of social protection will defend the PB from social explosion and speculation, from a large number of lawsuits and allegations. The last but not the least risk is the ability of new team to produce in the near future and release a fundamentally new, original, contemporary content that will be consumed by all Ukrai- nian society and meet the public request and expectations of experts. It is known that the rates and share of audience in all channels and branches of Public Company “NPTU” are sometimes close to statistical error. Today, the production of its own programs provides a miserable 3% of the budget. Optimizing the expenditure structure should lead to a significant increase in this amount. Only a per- sistent work can improve the skills of creative workers. A deep understanding of the

34 needs of audience and creative approach to the topics and formats should prepare new conditions for the production of high-quality content and increase the level of trust as well as actually the audience. Only the release of such an updated product on all “NPTU” channels will be able to convince Ukraine and Ukrainians that the struggle for establishment of Public Service Broadcasting in Ukraine was not in vain, that there is a television and broadcasting that satisfies the needs of every citizen, that the money spent from Ukraine’s budget is working for our society.

35 Section 5. Online and social media

Online and social media in Ukraine, 2016-2017

Vitaly Moroz, new media programs’ manager in NGO “Internews-Ukraine”

Introduction Over the recent decade the significance of the Internet and its impact upon both global and Ukrainian communities has been steadily increasing. Since the social protests that occurred in Ukraine in 2013–2014 and known as the Revolution of Dignity the Internet has grown to be an integral part of fundamental social transformations. The expanse of free access to the Internet is therefore regarded as a condition of economic growth as well as a tool for implementing reforms (starting electronic registers, tax returns, petitions etc.), providing access to information, devel- oping mass media and facilitating civil society. According to statistics, 52% of Ukraine’s population enjoys the access to the Internet that allows communication, shopping, recreation, following the news and using a profusion of electronic services and major social networks. At the same time, the Internet as a part of the digital world has turned into a battlefield in the so called “hybrid war” where the opponents exercise mass cyber attacks, informational offensives, propaganda practices and manipulative messages. As long as Russia wages “hybrid warfare” against the civilized world, the Internet and social media have been intensively used by the Kremlin as the tools of propaganda. Ukraine remains Russia’s primary target in the said “hybrid war” even after the annexation of the Crimea and occupation of a part of Donbas. At- tempting to answer the outer challenges, Ukrainian government chose the tactics of managing the Internet space. Russia admittedly continues impacting the Ukrainian segment of the Inter- net for the latter developed in the once shared informational space in the 1990s and 2000s. In May 2017 presidential decree № 133/2017 applied economic sanctions to hundreds of Russian businesses including media and television-communicational ones. Consequently, most of Ukrai- nian Internet-providing companies limited the access to Russian social networks Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki as well as to the Yandex.ru and Mail.ru resources. In June of 2017 the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine addressed the Security Service of Ukraine with the recommendation of blocking 20 “separatist” news websites. In July the law drafts (№ 6688, № 6676) allowing pre-trial blocking of websites for periods ranging from 24 hours up to 2 months were introduced to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Ukrainian civil society dubbed these drafts as dangerous and incomplete. All initiatives targeting the limitations of users’ rights are normally justified by the defense purposes determined by the war against Russia, yet they seem to be rash and are generated disregarding the expert and civil society’s opinions. No wonder, the said initiatives are opposed by IT businesses and a number of media and civil organizations. In 2017 the freedom of the Internet in Ukraine was questioned for the first time while the civil society is now facing yet another challenge in the interactions with the state institutions.

36 Access to the Internet in Ukraine. According to the data provided by Gemius Audience in September 2017, there were 22,1 million Internet-users in Ukraine In August 2017 [1]. This number corresponds to 51,9 % of Ukraine’s population, if the said figure is compared to the data provided by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine [2]. Of all the users 19,3 million people accessed the Internet using their desktop and laptop computers, 10,5 million people used smart- or cell phones, while 2,6 million people used their tablet devices. Simple arithmetic calculations applied to the data collected by Gemius Audience testify to the growth of the users’ number by 3,3 million (17,6 %, respectively) over the period of 2014-2017. Almost 16 million Ukrainian users accessed the internet on the weekly basis; 53 % of them were women. Users 14 - 34 years of age (i.e. 43 % of all users) turned out to be the most active. 40 % of the total number of users have university education while 7 % belong to the group with “incomplete higher education”.

Compared to other countries, the prices for the access to the Internet are relatively low. Monthly fees for broadband Internet traffic at 100 Mb/sec are seldom higher than 150 UAH i.e. a little less than 6 USD. The speed of data transmission appears to be another important index of Internet’s accessibility. According to the Speedtest Global Index provided by Ookla in August 2017 Ukraine occupied the 42nd place among 122 countries under analysis [3]. The average speed of the broadband traffic is 34,1 Mbps at downloading and 33,59 Mbps at uploading. At the same time mobile Internet is a lot slower thus placing Ukraine at the 107th spot in the Speedtest Global Index. The average speed of the mobile traffic is 8,63 Mbps at downloading and 2,44 Mbps at uploading.

37 Mobile Internet employing 3G technology, long expected by both businesses and common users has been available in Ukraine since 2015. The leading operators of wireless telephony Kyivstar, Vodafone (previously МТS) and Lifecell (previously Life) now provide access to 3G internet which allows faster net surfing and watching the stream videos. The introduction of 3G Internet also opened the door to the Ukrainian market for the companies (for instance, the taxi service Uber) that operate on the basis of extensive usage of apps and mobile internet. In over 40 Ukrainian cities the traffic of public transportation is monitored online in real-time mode via the EasyWay app. The development of the mobile Internet stimulated people’s more intensive using a number of services like Instagram or Youtube. There are talks of implementing the 4G format in 2018 as the Ukrainian government has preliminarily agreed to give up the frequencies currently used by the military on condition that Internet providers should purchase respective licenses. However there are considerable obstacles that hinder the development of mobile Internet in Ukraine and account for its low ranking in the Speedtest Global Index. Primarily, the frequencies needed for the 4G still officially belong to the military while a number of them are used to provide GSM communications. Secondly, current Ukrainian laws are rather outdated and cannot guarantee complete technological neutrality in the market of mobile communications. Functioning of 3D Internet is marked by a number of problems. Not all Ukrainians can actually use it for this format works mostly in the large cities that cover 15 % of Ukraine’s territory and house 70% of the country’s population. Massive investments by operators and considerable time are required to provide covering 88% of Ukraine’s territory with 3G in order to allow access to the mobile Internet for 98% of population. Meanwhile Ukrainians traveling around the country are mostly unable to connect to 3G Internet using their mobile devices.

38 More than big words: big data, e-governance and e-democracy These days we witness the Internet’s impacting modern generation’s notion of possibilities and self-realization. It has proven to be an effective tool in social-economic transformations as well as democratic participation in state governance. Thus the categories of e-governance and e-democracy have recently grown to be of greater importance in the field of social relations. E- governance encompasses sets of electronically mediated governing practices that focus on providing various services to people and follow the principles of transparent and effective internal management. Respectively, e-democracy allows engaging citizens into the process of decision making via online voting, petitions etc. At the same time, it is the phenomenon of “big data” that demonstrates the highest dynamics of growing. The said data are collected and processed by large technologically advanced companies like Google, Facebook or Twitter. In this case users voluntarily submit a large amount of personal information when they enter social networks or run search queries. The very conditions of using these services require people’s agreement to their personal data’s being collected, processed and stored. The processed data are then shared with advertisers. Governmental organizations, communal and private enterprises that run municipal economy (statistics offices, housing maintenance offices, municipal transportation companies etc.) appear to be the second largest operator of big data. Application of modern methods to process- ing big data has not started in Ukraine until the recent years. It is also noteworthy that a considerable number of governmental institutions demonstrate inability to store and transmit big data in user-friendly formats although it is legally required of them. In 2016 Ukraine shared the 44th spot with Estonia in UN’s Open Data Barometer which measures the ability of national governments to provide and use clear and open data in accounts, innovations social impacts [4]. Although this is 18 spots higher than the country’s position in the same rating in 2015, Ukraine is still behind other post-soviet countries like Russia (#25), Moldova (#31) and Georgia (#40). Currently a Unified State Portal of Open Data (http:// data.gov.ua/) operates in Ukraine and features daily updates of diverse databases. However the databases do require more effective managing and moderating.

In UN’s 2016 index of e-governance Ukraine climbed 25 spots in comparison to 2015 up to #62 among 193 countries. Still, Ukraine remains behind Estonia and countries with authoritarian regimes like Belarus and Russia [5]. Ukraine’s #32 in UN’s index of e-democracy (or “e- participation”) looks a little more favorable demonstrating a 45 positions’ rise.

39 Citizens’ access to state registers and public databases is so far the most significant of e-democracy’s recent achievements. In 2015 Internet-users created a list of 148 databases with open access [6]. The team of the anti-corruption project “CorruptUA” catalogued and introduced the most useful resources together with the 9 public registers thus providing the possibility of obtaining inquiries and references online without excessive paperwork and wasting time in offices [7]. These services provide opportunities and advantages in several areas. For instance, access to the register of real state rights helps identifying all respective owners in Ukraine; access to the public land-survey allows finding a specific ground area while access to the Unified state register of court orders facilitates the search of any court decision. The implementation of the ProZorro system that monitors tender procurement operations is considered to be a special marker of democratic developments in Ukraine. The same is true for the implementation of electronic tax declarations for statesmen and officials which arrived as a part of the government’s anti-corruption policy. Since August 1, 2016 all state customers have been obliged to carry out procurement orders via the ProZorro system. According to the Prime-minister V. Groisman, the said requirement resulted in 19,1 billion UAH economy over the year’s span [8]. The first stage of filing in electronic tax declarations was complete in October 2016 as the law “On Preventing Corruption” required. [9]. As over 118 hundred people filed in their tax declarations the whole country was surprised to learn that Ukrainian parliamentarians owned over 10 billion UAH, 70% in cash. [10]. Meanwhile the verification of the declared income has been ineffective: a few investigations were started yet they resulted in no court decisions. In fact, journalists turned out to be the most active investigators as they addressed the data provided by ProZorro and e-declarations and compared them to peculiarities of tender procurement operations as well as the lifestyle of the officials involved in the said operations. Tenders are closely monitored by the teams “Nashi Hroshi” (“Our money”) and the Anti-corruption Center. The journalists from “Slidstvo.info”, “Skhemy”, “Ukrayinska Pravda” are mostly focused on e- declarations. Without modern technological advances and possibilities provided by the Internet such monitoring and respective social transformations would be impossible in Ukraine.

Regulating the Internet: the Challenges The success of the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014 which resulted in reshuffling of political elites in Ukraine to a certain degree was determined by the protesters’ effective mobilizing with the help of the Internet and social networks. Disregard of the Internet’s communicative and mobilizing potential played a bad joke to the government of Yanukovich: the previous regime took pains to primarily control television, while the attempts to impact the Internet informational space were carried out as DDoS-attacks on independent news resources during the active stage

40 of the revolution. The current President who came into office as a supporter and a participant of the Revolution of Dignity ought to realize how dangerous the attempts of limiting Internet interactions could be. However, regulating the Internet seems to be inevitable under conditions of the “hybrid war”. Therefore, we face a question: how far can this regulating go being justified as a measure of defense and protection from Russia? On May 15, the President of Ukraine enacted (by decree № 133/2017) the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (passed on April 28, 2017) that implemented personal economic sanctions against 468 Russian companies and 1228 individuals for the period of 1-3 years. The sanctions targeted Russian mass media and those companies that own the primary Russian internet resources like Vkontkte, Odnoklassniki, Mail.ru and Yandex. Most Internet providers and mobile operators blocked the access to the Russian websites for Ukrainian users although that was not a legal requirement. Several international human rights organizations severely criticized this decision, although NATO highlighted the fact that Ukraine has the right to defend itself. At the same time users still access the above mentioned web-sites with the help of VPN and IP-scrambling software as long as this practice is not legally prosecuted. In June of 2017 the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine addressed the Security Service of Ukraine with the recommendation of blocking 20 “separatist” news websites. Among them were the Russkaia Vesna, News-Front, Novorossiya websites. This proposition was also criticized as its realization could create a precedent for blocking any website. Though in July the law drafts (№ 6688, № 6676) allowing pre-trial blocking of web-sites for periods ranging from 24 hours up to 2 months were introduced to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The drafts were initiated by the ruling coalition of Petro Poroshenko’s “Solidarnist” and “Narodnyi Front” (“People’s front”). The drafts aimed at combating Russia’s informational aggression yet both their rhetoric and argumentation were nothing more than the clones of the strategies and techniques of controlling the Internet implemented by the Russian Federal Service of Surveillance over Informational Technologies and Mass Communication. The leading media companies were rather adamant in their criticism of the drafts [11], therefore draft № 6676 was withdrawn. During the war (officially referred to as an “anti-terrorist operation”) the Security Service of Ukraine naturally plays an important role in preventing acts of terror and diversions. How- ever, due to the impact of the oligarch groups upon a range of processes within the Security Service the latter becomes involved in political and economic competition. The Security Service is responsible for searches of facilities belonging to IT-companies and internet providers that allegedly violated Ukrainian law. In fact, the methods employed at these searches as well as requisitioning the servers undermine the attractiveness of Ukraine for potential investors and the effectiveness of Ukrainian business sphere. A large amount of conflicts between state organs and business or state institutions and civil society requires adequate solutions hence there is a tremendous need for effective communication. As an example of cooperation, NGO Internews-Ukraine suggests Recommendations for Informational Security in the Internet [12] that address the ways of solving challenges arising in stakeholders’ communication.

Social networks and websites Russian web resources used to be very popular with Ukrainian audience: websites like Vkontakte, Mail.ru and Yandex traditionally were in the top 10 most popular ones. The situation has changed since the introduction of sanctions and blocking of some Russian websites in May 2017. There is still traffic between the blocked sites and the users as people utilize IP-scramblers and VPN software but Russian web-sites have ceased being the most popular. According to the research by Gemius Audience only Vkontakte remained in the top 10 (5th place). However as various indices employ diverse sampling the results may vary. For instance, Factum Group provides their list of 25 top web-sites in Ukraine for August 2017 where the Russian Vkontakte occupies the 4th position and Yandex.ru - the 5th [13]. Other indices do not register Russian web-sites in the top 10 of Ukrainian Internet space. The obvious general tendency is towards Russian sites’ losing their role in Ukrainian users’ lives. In 2-3 years we shall see whether Russia will completely lose its impact upon the Ukrainian Internet audience via the social networks.

41 After the blocking of Russian social networks the audience of American web-sites has demonstrated considerable growth. As the Watcher indicates, according to Facebook’s inner statistics there were 6 million registered Ukrainian users before May 2017 (the signing of the sanctions’ decree № 133/2017) while this number grew up to 8,9 in August [14]. At the same time several Ukrainian social networks like Ukrainians and Nimses were started in the summer of 2017 as an alternative to the blocked Vkontakte. Ukrainians looked like Facebook’s copy with limited functionality. The Nimses crew positioned their product as a free service running on the principle of monetization: the time spent by users in the network is exchanged for the virtual currency (“nims”) that could be spent on purchases or services. The developers of Nimses claim that the network enjoys the audience of over 2 million people. [15]. In September 2017 the developers of Ukrainians announced the shutdown of their project. [16]. Social networks remain a very popular space for social debates and highlighting political developments in Ukraine. The most sensitive issues addressed to in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook quite often migrate to television reports or become published in traditional mass media. High-ranking officials including the President, the prime-minister and the speaker of Verk- hovna Rada use Facebook intensively on order to both inform the world of their activities and find support among the Internet audience. However a number of Ukrainian political parties utilize social networks employing the methods typical for Russia. The notion of “troll factory” initially referred to the organized group of fake network users that resided in Olgino near St. Petersburg and promoted certain propaganda-oriented ideas. Suchlike structures have been operating in Ukraine for a couple of years serving the interests of political parties. On the eve of another election campaign a vast wave of trolling and manipulations is to be expected. Therefore if democracy should eventually prevail in Ukraine, a wider social support is required to the civil society’s initiatives directed towards improving “media literacy” among various age groups of Ukrainians, providing education for journalists and combating manipulations.

42 [1] Results of research conducted by Gemius Audience in August, 2017: http://www.gemius.com.ua/vse-stati-dlja-chtenija/gemiusaudience-za-serpen-2017-roku.html. [2] Population as of July 1, 2017 and average population over January - June, 2017: http://database.ukrcensus.gov.ua/PXWEB2007/ukr/news/op_popul.asp. [3] Speedtest Global Index August 2017: http://www.speedtest.net/global-index. [4] The Open Data Barometer 2016: http://opendatabarometer.org/?_year=2016&indicator=ODB. [5] UN E-Government knowledge database: https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Data-Center. [6] A list of 148 open databases is created: http://corruptua.org/2015/04/stvoreno-perelik-iz-148-mi-vidkritih-baz-danih-dlya-gromadyan- ukrayini/. [7] E-democracy in the Ukrainian way: http://corruptua.org/projects/e-democracy/index.html. [8] V. Groisman says, Ukraine saved 19,1 billion UAH: https://zaxid.net/za_rik_prozorro_zaoshhadila_191_billion_derzhkoshtiv__groysman_ n1432707. [9] The first stage of filing in e-declarations for 2015 is over – more than 118000 documents: https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/news/28084759.html. [10] legendary declarations. Who shocked Ukraine with their income: https://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2016/10/31/609596/. [11] Drafts № 6676 і № 6688 endanger free development of the Internet - the declaration by media NGOs: http://detector.media/infospace/article/127933/2017-07-13-zakonoproekti- 6676-i-6688-stavlyat-pid-zagrozu-vilnii-rozvitok-internetu-v-ukraini-zayava-mediinikh-go/. [12] Download the manual “ Recommendations for Informational Security in times of conflict”: http://netfreedom.org.ua/zavantazujte-posibnyk-z-informatsijnoi-bezpeky-v-czasy-konfliktu/. [13] Top 25 web-sites in August, 2017 according to Opinion Software Media, Factum Group: http://inau.ua/sites/default/files/file/1709/august_2017.pdf. [14] The number of Ukrainian Instagram users has grown up to 6 million people, the number of Facebook users has stopped growing: http://watcher.com.ua/2017/08/18/kilkist-ukrayinskyh-korystuvachiv-v-instagram-zrosla-do- 6-million-a-facebook-prypynyv-rist/. [15] there are over 2 million accounts in the Ukrainian social network Nimses: https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-technology/2247664-v-ukrainskij-socmerezi-nimses- vze-2-miljoni-akauntiv.html. [16] The developers of the social network Ukrainians have shut the project down: http://nv.ua/ukr/techno/gadgets/ukrajinska-sotsialna-merezha-ukrainians-pripinila-svoje-isnu- vannja-1795040.html.

43 About the authors

Oles Hoian, radio journalist; Doctor of Science; Head of Television and Radio Broadcast- ing Department, Institute of Journalism, Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University. Lecturer of disciplines: “Radio journalism”, “Radio Management Fundamentals”, “Radio Program Anchor”; conducts a creative workshop; Author of handbooks and manuals, scientific articles and publications dedicated to radio journalism theory and private radio broadcasting development in Ukraine.

Tetiana Lebedeva, Honorary Head of the Independent Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters; Head of Supervisory Board, Public Company “National Public TV and Radio Com- pany”; Member of National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting (2003-2010); Member of Expert Council under the Ministry of Information Policy; Member of the Journalistic Ethics Committee.

Oleksiy Matsuka, Ukrainian journalist; Editor-in-chief of the website “News of Donbas” and founder of “Donbas Public Television. In April, 2014 was included in the register of “100 In- formation Heroes) first published by organization “Reporters without Boarders”. In October, 2014 was awarded with the International Press Freedom Award by organization “Canadian Journalists for Free Expression”; Actively cooperates with other media, in particular, with “Public” and “Radio Svoboda”.

Vitaliy Moroz, Head of New Media Programs in NGO “Internews-Ukraine”, one of the biggest NGOs in Ukraine; Responsible for development of innovative education projects for journalists; In charge of trainings and programs on activity in the field of online media, social media, digital communication, and digital security. Conducted more than 300 training sessions (trainings, seminars, barcamps) and reports on innovations for media; was published in “Ukrainska Pravda”, “Krytyka”, “Hazeta-po-Ukrainsky”, and journals: “Correspondent” and “Profile”. Twitter: - @insider_ua (in Ukrainian) and @vitaliymoroz (in English).

Oleksiy Pohorelov, Head of Ukrainian Association of Media Business (old name – Ukrai- nian Association of Periodical Press Releasers); gives lectures and master-classes; personally helps managers and editors who are nearby as a coach; conducts information campaigns with colleagues and partners; was involved in the project conducted with the International Associa- tion of Newspaper Publishers and News (WAN-IFRA) within the framework of the 64th Interna- tional newspaper Congress and the 19th International Editorial Forum in Kyiv, September, 2012. More than 1000 top media managers participated in this event; Member of the Journalistic Ethics Committee.

Serhiy Tomilenko, Head of the National Association of Journalists of Ukraine; Honored journalist of Ukraine; founder and head of the information agency Procherk.info in Cherkasy; Editor-in-chief of Cherkasy regional newspaper “Nova Doba” (1998- 2010). Previously was vice editor-in-chief of “Molod Cherkashchyny” newspaper.

Andriy Yurychko, journalist; media trainer; PhD; lecturer at the Institute of Journalism, Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University.